Lab-grown meat has had its fair share of detractors. And now, as Rachel Tucker writes at The Hill, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis "has beef with lab-grown meat" and is advocating for two bills that would ban its production and sale.
Tucker notes that DeSantis is broadly opposed to ESG policies; ESG, which stands for "environmental, social and governance," in this case," is a framework that's used to assess an organization's business practices and performance on key sustainability and ethical issues. DeSantis, per Tucker, believes that this is a way of "trying to impose an agenda on society through the economy."
"They want to go after agriculture," DeSantis said while speaking in Florida last week. "They want to blame agriculture for global warming." While research has found that "livestock production is a significant contributing factor to global warming due to its contribution to greenhouse gases," Florida state Republicans claim not enough research has been done on lab-grown meat to ensure its safety for consumers.
A pair of bills, HB-435 and SB-586, would "ban the production of cultivated meat" and, if passed, would also put any restaurant that sells the product at risk of losing its license. While cultivated meat is not currently available in stores, it was recently approved by the FDA and USDA and has been sold in restaurants. Upside Foods, one of the companies producing the cultivated meat, stated that their company "strongly opposes" the legislation, which they state "threatens the free market, stifles innovation, and limits consumer choice"
