The kind of meat that Florida has banned may or may not catch on. But consumers, not lobbyists, should determine whether it does.
The kind of meat that Florida has banned may or may not catch on. But consumers, not lobbyists, should determine whether it does.
W hen people think about Florida agriculture, oranges are probably the first thing that springs to mind. But when it comes to livestock, cattle is king. Cattle ranchers in Florida bring in more than half a billion dollars a year. And wherever there’s that much money being made, laws that shut out competition aren’t far behind.
It’s a familiar story: New competition rides into town, and corporate ranchers saddle up and head to the Capitol to lobby for special favors. Previously cattle and dairy interests have gone after veggie burgers and plant-based milk.
Their latest target is “cultivated” meat.
Cultivated or “cultured” meat is meat grown directly from animal cells without the need for raising or slaughtering livestock. The idea appeals to consumers who want to enjoy meat without the ethical, environmental, or health concerns surrounding factory farming.
California-based UPSIDE Foods is a pioneer in this space. The start-up company has shown that its products are safe, receiving the green light from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration for nationwide sales of a cultivated chicken product that looks and cooks like a boneless chicken cutlet.
But even though UPSIDE does not yet sell cultivated beef, cattle ranchers thought they saw the writing on the wall. So they lobbied for protection from this new competition. And on May 1, Florida became the first state to give it to them when Governor Ron DeSantis signed S.B. 1084.
Under this law, anyone who manufactures, distributes, or sells cultivated meat in the Sunshine State is guilty of a misdemeanor. Violators face up to 60 days in jail and $500 daily fines.
Before the law went into effect on July 1, UPSIDE hosted a rooftop tasting party in Miami, where guests enjoyed cultivated chicken tostadas. But UPSIDE doesn’t want that one event to be Floridians’ last opportunity to taste its innovative product. That is why UPSIDE has joined with my public-interest law firm, the Institute for Justice, to file a lawsuit on August 13 in federal court challenging the ban.
Florida’s ban on cultivated meat may target a cutting-edge technology, but its motivation is old-fashioned protectionism.
Florida has no cultivated-meat producers. But it does have thousands of acres of ranch and farmland that it wants to shield from out-of-state competition.
This agenda is no secret. Cattle-industry lobbyists and supporters talk openly about their intention. Their rallying cry has been: “We will save our beef.” Florida’s commissioner of agriculture, Wilton Simpson — a defendant in the lawsuit — proudly announced that the law was intended to “protect our incredible farmers” and “keep Florida’s agricultural industry strong and thriving.”
The government activism is misguided. States cannot wall themselves off from innovative new products just to protect favored in-state interests from out-of-state competition. Indeed, a driving force behind the adoption of the U.S. Constitution was the desire to create a national common market in which goods could flow freely from one state to another.
That desire is reflected in multiple clauses of the Constitution, including the commerce clause, which has long been understood to prohibit state laws — like the one in Florida — that have the purpose of discriminating against interstate commerce.
Protecting the free flow of goods throughout the country isn’t just about dollars and cents. Ultimately, it is about protecting the freedom of consumers to decide for themselves what to buy. UPSIDE founder and CEO Uma Valeti, a cardiologist who teaches at Stanford University, cuts to the heart of the matter. “People should have the right to choose what they eat,” he says.
Laws like Florida’s are a direct threat to that right. And already some other states are following suit. Shortly after Florida passed its law, Alabama also banned cultivated meat, while officials in Arizona, Kentucky, West Virginia, and Tennessee have introduced similar bans.
If laws like these are allowed to stand, there will be no limit to what products states could shut out. States opposed to conventional meat could even take steps to shut that out. The result would be less choice for consumers everywhere.
That must not be allowed to happen. Cultivated meat may or may not catch on. But whether it does shouldn’t depend on who has the most lobbying clout. It should depend on the free choices of consumers.
In a free country, consumers who like the idea of enjoying meat without the need to kill animals should be allowed to taste UPSIDE’s product if they want to. And if consumers don’t like the idea of cultivated meat, there’s a simple solution: Don’t eat it.