The cost of clinging to the past

With the stroke of a pen, Nebraska became the sixth US state to ban cultivated meat. Governor Jim Pillen, a hog farmer by trade, signed LB246 into law, criminalizing not just the sale and production of cultivated meat, but even its promotion and distribution. If it wasn’t already clear, the gloves are off in America’s battle over the future of food.

“We need to be willing to protect and preserve our state’s vital ag industry as well as our consumers,” said Gov. Pillen. “These products are grown from harvested cells in bioreactor machines. The health consequences are unknown and so are the long-term effects to consumers.”

What’s happening here isn’t about safety. It’s about fear – fear of change, fear of competition, and fear of a food future that some would rather delay – or derail – than deal with.

A political movement masquerading as food safety

Let’s be honest: cultivated meat bans aren’t about consumer protection. They’re about protectionism, plain and simple. Florida lit the fuse in May 2024. Since then, Alabama, Arizona, Tennessee, and Texas have joined the charge, each state painting cultivated meat as an existential threat to rural livelihoods and public health. Now Nebraska enters the fray with one of the most extreme laws yet – banning not only production and sale, but also the promotion of these products. How long before mentioning cultivated meat in a science classroom becomes a punishable offense?

This isn’t regulation. It’s ideological posturing. The fact that Amendment 882 – a more moderate proposal to introduce clear labeling rules – was voted down in Nebraska’s legislature speaks volumes. Lawmakers aren’t interested in transparency. They’re interested in silencing alternatives.

Ironically, these are the same politicians who usually argue that the market should decide. Yet here, they are actively preventing American consumers from making informed choices. You can buy a genetically modified fish or irradiated ground beef in Nebraska, but you won’t be allowed to legally try a USDA-approved piece of cultivated chicken.

So much for freedom.

This isn’t regulation. It’s ideological posturing. The fact that Amendment 882 – a more moderate proposal to introduce clear labeling rules – was voted down in Nebraska’s legislature speaks volumes

The consequences of standing still

By waging war on cultivated meat, states like Nebraska are choosing to walk backward while the rest of the world sprints ahead.

Singapore approved cultivated meat back in 2020. Israel, the Netherlands, and South Korea have made significant investments in the field, with governments actively working to create frameworks that support innovation and commercial scaleup. Even China, hardly known for food safety transparency, has declared cultivated meat a strategic priority in its five-year agricultural plan.

Meanwhile, US innovators are being told to pack up and go elsewhere. For startups struggling to scale a product that’s already capital-intensive and technologically demanding, these bans are an existential threat. When six of the top 25 most agriculturally productive states in the country send a hostile message to a new food category, it's not just the companies that suffer – it’s the investors, the universities, the talent pipelines, and the long-term potential of US bioeconomy leadership.

The USA dominated the early stages of cultivated meat R&D, thanks to a vibrant ecosystem of startups, universities, and public-private partnerships. But that lead is now at risk. We’ve seen it before – solar panels, semiconductors, even electric vehicles. Once American ingenuity, now mostly manufactured elsewhere.

If we repeat this pattern with food technology, the consequences will be harder to stomach.

The FAO predicts the world will need 70% more protein by 2050. That demand cannot be met through livestock alone – not without burning more rainforest and draining more aquifers.

The agriculture fallacy

Let’s not pretend that conventional meat is under attack by a scrappy band of lab scientists. The global meat industry is a US$1.3 trillion behemoth. Cultivated meat, by comparison, generated just over US$225 million in global investment in 2023 – a decline from previous years. It is, by every metric, a minnow swimming beside a whale.

What’s more, cultivated meat is not a replacement. It’s an adjunct, one designed to meet rising global protein demand without increasing emissions, land use, or water consumption. The FAO predicts the world will need 70% more protein by 2050. That demand cannot be met through livestock alone – not without burning more rainforest and draining more aquifers.

Rather than cannibalizing traditional agriculture, cultivated meat offers a pressure valve. It’s a bet on diversification, on resilience, on hedging against pandemics, antibiotic resistance, and climate volatility.

To frame this technology as a threat rather than a tool is both dishonest and dangerously shortsighted.

Consumers deserve more than nostalgia

Let’s return to the consumer – the person whose voice is being drowned out in this debate.

The public is curious. A 2024 survey by GFI found that over 70% of Gen Z and Millennial respondents in the USA were open to trying cultivated meat. Many cited environmental reasons, animal welfare, or a desire to support scientific advancement. Some just want meat that doesn’t come with the baggage of feedlots and slaughterhouses.

Why should these consumers be denied the chance to even try the product, especially when it’s been reviewed and cleared by federal regulators?

By banning cultivated meat outright, states are sending a message that your preferences don’t matter. Your values, your curiosity, your agency – they’re all collateral damage in a culture war disguised as food policy.

If cultivated meat can be banned despite federal approval, what’s to stop similar laws from targeting precision fermentation, microbial protein, or even advanced plant-based innovations?

What’s really on the chopping block?

Make no mistake: these laws are a warning shot to the entire alt-protein ecosystem. If cultivated meat can be banned despite federal approval, what’s to stop similar laws from targeting precision fermentation, microbial protein, or even advanced plant-based innovations?

Where does it end? Are we going to ban vertical farming next because lettuce didn’t grow in soil? Or outlaw food made using AI because it sounds too high-tech for the dinner table?

These bans aren’t just about cultivated meat. They’re about a worldview that fears progress, mistrusts science, and believes nostalgia is a substitute for strategy.

But America’s greatest strength has never been in looking backwards. It’s been in imagining what’s possible – and then building it.

A call to action

The federal government cannot afford to be a bystander. A coordinated, science-based national policy is needed to prevent a fragmented patchwork of laws that undermine innovation and consumer rights. If cultivated meat is deemed safe and legal at the national level, states should not have the authority to criminalize its existence.

At the same time, companies and trade associations must fight back. Through litigation, education, and public engagement, they must assert their right to participate in a fair marketplace. Consumer choice, environmental sustainability, and economic opportunity depend on it.

And consumers? Consumers should ask themselves what kind of food system they want. One shaped by informed decision-making – or one dictated by fear.

Because in the end, the question isn’t whether cultivated meat is the future. The question is whether the USA still wants to be part of it.