Cultivated-meat proponents should support Kamala Harris

While Vice President Kamala Harris hasn’t specifically discussed cultivated meat, so far as I’m aware, her election to the country’s highest office would almost certainly be better for the development of cellular agriculture than a victory by former President Donald Trump. The new protein boasts a wide variety of environmental, public-health and animal-welfare benefits.

Cultivated meat is expected to require a fraction of the greenhouse-gas emissions to produce that raising livestock does. Since animals are removed from the process, the risk of zoonotic diseases making the jump to humans would be dramatically limited. Meanwhile, battery cages, gestation crates and livestock trucks could be relegated to a less compassionate past.

It was under the administration of President Joe Biden and Harris that the Department of Agriculture awarded $10 million to Tufts University, in order to establish the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture. Besides leading research in the field, the Massachusetts-based institute was meant to educate the next generation of professionals in the cultivated-meat space.

Similarly, it was the Biden-Harris administration that ordered the creation of a report about how to use biotechnology and biomanufacturing for alternative proteins. During a background press call, a senior official explained, “We’re also looking to improve food security and drive agricultural innovation, including through…foods made with cultured animal cells.”

Finally, it was the USDA, again under the Biden-Harris administration, that first approved the sale of cultivated chicken in the country. While this has been a largely symbolic decision so far, as companies in the field are not yet ready to mass produce their product, it was nonetheless historic. Only Singapore had previously approved cultivated meat for market.

Perhaps some will argue this approval would have occurred under Trump’s watch. After all, a framework for regulation of cultivated meat was established while he was in office. However, the new protein has become much more politically polarized since then. I’m genuinely unsure if the product would have received a fair review from a Republican-controlled USDA.

That brings me to my next point. When you’re voting for president, you’re not just voting for a particular person, you’re voting for who that person will staff the government with. As I noted, views of cultivated meat have become increasingly polarized. This is unfortunate, but inevitable, if the technology is the threat to animal agriculture some of us hope it is.

Elected Democrats are, on the whole, more open to cellular agriculture than their Republican colleagues. So far, Florida and Alabama have banned sales of the new protein. More states could follow suit. To my knowledge, these are all Republican-led efforts. Whatever Harris and Trump think of cultivated meat, they will be staffing the government with members of their own party.

That’s why proponents of cellular agriculture should support Harris for president in November. This needn’t be uncritical support. In fact, we should pressure her, using every peaceful means available, to go further than the Biden-Harris administration in accelerating the development of cultivated meat. However she is the clear choice for such proponents over Trump.