The steaks are high: Florida Republican wants to ban lab-grown meat

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A Florida Republican has a beef with lab-grown meat.

State Rep. Tyler Sirois has proposed legislation that would make it a criminal offense to sell ”cultivated” meat in Florida, claiming that it’s an "affront to nature and creation" and the latest front in the “ESG agenda” — referring to environmental, social and corporate governance, which has been target of Gov. Ron DeSantis and Republican state leaders.

"Farming and cattle are incredibly important industries to Florida," Sirois said in an interview on Wednesday. "So I think this is a very relevant discussion for our state to have."

Sirois, a developer who said he doesn't have ties to agriculture, said he hopes Florida will become the first state to ban cultured meat.

He also has a powerful ally supporting him: Wilton Simpson, the state’s agriculture commissioner and former Senate president, who is “100%” behind the effort.

"Without this legislation, untested, potentially unsafe, and nearly unregulated laboratory produced meat could be made available in Florida," Simpson, an industrial egg farmer, said in a statement.

The U. S. Department of Agriculture last June approved two companies, Upside Foods and Good Meat Inc., to sell cultivated meat, though it’s not yet readily available in grocery stores. The faux meat is grown from animal cells and can be formed into nuggets, cutlets or other shapes and proponents argue it can reduce the environmental effects of grazing, growing feed for animals and animal waste.

"Instead of all of that land and all of that water that's used to feed all of these animals that are slaughtered, we can do it in a different way," Josh Tetrick, co-founder and CEO of Eat Just Inc., which operates Good Meat, told The Associated Press.

There was no immediate response to requests for comment from the Association for Meat, Poultry and Seafood Innovation, which represents the emerging cultivated meat industry and has promoted its sale in restaurants.

The association says on its website that cultured meat "will be a critical and sustainable component, in partnership with the overall agriculture sector, to meeting increased demand for meat as the world’s population continues to grow."

Sirois said he finds the process of growing meat in a laboratory, using chemicals and enzymes, to be "deeply troubling." His legislation would make it a second-degree misdemeanor to sell or distribute it.

"I think it raises important ethical concerns about the limitations and boundaries we should place on this type of science," he said. "I think you could see a very slippery slope here leading to things like cloning, which are very troubling to me."

Sirois also said the USDA and the federal Food and Drug Administration are part of the ESG push behind lab-grown meat. He noted that the Legislature earlier this year had targeted environmental, social and governance scoring factors in state investments.

"That's the message that is being sent here is that the laboratory-produced product is superior to conventional farming and cattle ranching," Sirois said. "But to me my focus is on making sure No. 1 that we are not acting here without understanding the consequences of manipulating this material in a laboratory — manipulating cells that are harvested from animals — and also making sure Floridians have a clear understanding of what is going on here."

The nonprofit advocacy group Organic Consumers Association and the trade and lobbying organization National Cattlemen’s Beef Association also have raised concerns at the national level about the production and labeling of cultivated meat.

Sam Ard, director of governmental affairs for the Florida Cattlemen's Association, told POLITICO his group hasn't taken a position on the bill but opposes calling the lab-grown product "meat."

"It's not meat," Ard said. "Meat comes from a cow. Meat comes from a live animal."