Italy proposes ban on lab-grown meat to protect food heritage

Italy’s right-wing gov­ern­ment has intro­duced a bill ban­ning lab-grown meat and oth­er syn­thet­ic foods, cit­ing the impor­tance of Ital­ian food tra­di­tions and health pro­tec­tion. If the bill is passed, vio­la­tions of the ban will result in fines of up to €60,000.

Francesco Lol­lo­b­rigi­da, Direc­tor of the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture and Food Sov­er­eign­ty, empha­sized the impor­tance of Ital­ian food tra­di­tions. The Farmer’s Lob­by praised the move, gar­ner­ing half a mil­lion sig­na­tures in recent months call­ing for the pro­tec­tion of “nat­ur­al vs. syn­thet­ic foods.”

But some ani­mal rights groups see lab-grown meat as a solu­tion to prob­lems such as pro­tect­ing the envi­ron­ment from car­bon emis­sions and ensur­ing food safe­ty. The bill is con­tro­ver­sial over the eth­i­cal impli­ca­tions of the ban.

The ban, which aims to ban syn­thet­ic foods pro­duced from ani­mal cells with­out killing the ani­mal, would also apply to lab­o­ra­to­ry-pro­duced fish and syn­thet­ic milk. Last year, the US Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion approved cell-grown chick­en for human con­sump­tion, and Sin­ga­pore grant­ed reg­u­la­to­ry approval to lab-grown chick­en used in nuggets.

Although the Euro­pean Food Safe­ty Author­i­ty has acknowl­edged the poten­tial ben­e­fits of cell cul­ture, Italy’s pro­posed ban would pre­vent syn­thet­ic meat pro­duced with­in the EU, if approved by the EU, for the free move­ment of goods and ser­vices. have expressed con­cern about oppos­ing the sale of

In any case, the Ital­ian gov­ern­ment remains com­mit­ted to pre­serv­ing the coun­try’s culi­nary her­itage and pro­mot­ing nat­ur­al food production.