It was a few months ago when Gov. Ron DeSantis first announced his support for preventing “cultivated” lab-grown meat from being made or sold in Florida. “You need meat, OK. And we’re going to have meat in Florida,” the Republican governor said, adding, “We’re not going to have fake meat. Like, that doesn’t work.”
He wasn’t talking about soy- or vegetable-based meat substitutes. Rather, as The Tampa Bay Times reported, cultivated meat “involves a process of taking a small number of cultured cells from animals and growing them in controlled settings to make food. Industry officials have argued the cultivated meat process has been closely scrutinized by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to ensure safety.”
This week, as the NBC affiliate in Miami reported, DeSantis banned it anyway.
Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday signed a controversial measure that will bar selling or manufacturing lab-grown meat in Florida and prevent local regulation of electric-vehicle charging stations. DeSantis said the bill (SB 1084), which includes a series of changes related to the state Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, will protect the state’s cattle industry against “an ideological agenda that wants to finger agriculture as the problem.”
In keeping with his usual high-minded approach to policymaking, the far-right Republican added at the bill signing, “Global elites want to control our behavior. … Florida is saying no.”
Going forward, to sell or manufacture cultivated meat in the Sunshine State will be a second-degree misdemeanor. (The local report added, “The measure doesn’t prohibit cultivated-meat research because of concerns that such a