Jon Hochschartner
I was happy to learn the South Korean government recently invested $10 million to build a cultivated meat research center in Uiseong County. For those who don’t know, cultivated meat is grown from livestock cells, without slaughter. It offers a number of potential animal welfare, public health and environmental benefits.
Rather than preemptively banning the new protein, as some American states have done, our government should be building similar research facilities around the country, including at every agricultural college in the nation. These can and should be paid for by redirecting subsidies used to prop up the existing factory-farm system.
South Korea’s Food Tech Research Support Center is scheduled to open in 2027. The facility will provide a space for companies to develop their processes, scale up production, and apply for regulatory approval, according to Green Queen, a digital news platform focused on food system innovation and decarbonization.
“These investments will further enhance what is already one of the world’s most advanced tech ecosystems,” Mirte Gosker — a representative of alternative-protien advocacy organization the Good Food Institute — told Green Queen. “South Korea is well-positioned to be a global powerhouse for cellular agriculture.”
The local government will reportedly launch education campaigns to foster mainstream acceptance of cultivated meat. I’m not aware of a publicly-funded media effort like this. It’s a simple idea, but bold in its commitment to change. Any governments interested in transforming the agricultural sector should create similar campaigns.
Lee Chul-woo, governor of the North Gyeongsang province, was enthusiastic about cellular agriculture, when speaking to Green Queen: “The establishment of a core infrastructure at the Food Tech Research Support Center will serve as an opportunity for Gyeongbuk to leap to the center of the Korean food tech industry.”
These are exciting developments. Unfortunately, the United States is moving in the opposite direction. For instance, Mississippi is slated to outlaw the manufacturing, sale or distribution of cultivated meat this summer. It’s a deeply shameful effort given the numerous ways cellular agriculture can improve our world.
From an animal’s perspective, factory farms are hell on earth. With the impending commercialization of cultivated meat, we can relegate these barbaric torture chambers — and the whole practice of killing animals for food — to a less compassionate, less enlightened past. Our descendants will look back on such things with horror.
Similarly, devastating pandemics can frequently be traced back to animal agriculture, where sick livestock come into close contact with humans. Since these creatures are removed from the production process of cultivated meat, the risk of zoonotic viruses making the jump to our species would be dramatically reduced.
Finally, animal agriculture is one of the leading causes of climate change, an inconvenient truth which takes many environmentalists by surprise. While the technology is by no means mature, scientists expect cultivated meat will eventually require a fraction of the greenhouse-gas emissions to produce that slaughtered meat does.
Instead of trying to suppress the nascent field of cellular agriculture, the United States should take some inspiration from South Korea. Let’s build publicly-funded research centers all across the country, dedicated to overcoming the remaining technological hurdles standing in the way of mass production of cultivated meat.
Jon Hochschartner lives in Connecticut. He is the author of a number of books, including The Animals’ Freedom Fighter: A Biography of Ronnie Lee, Founder of the Animal Liberation Front. Visit his blog at SlaughterFreeAmerica.Substack.com.
