SFA talks to president of UVM’s Cellular Agriculture Club
Irfan Tahir holds a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Minnesota. Currently, he is a Ph.D. student at the Engineered Biomaterials Research Laboratory at the University of Vermont (UVM) where he is tissue engineering cultivated meat on plant-based scaffolds. Tahir is also the president and co-founder of UVM's Cellular Agriculture Club.
Previously, he studied at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey for his bachelor’s in mechanical engineering and Cloquet Senior High School in Minnesota as part of the Kennedy-Lugar Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program. His hometown is in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. If you would like to write something for Slaughter-Free America or be interviewed over email for the website, send a message to JonHoch87@gmail.com.
SLAUGHTER-FREE AMERICA: When and how did you first learn about cultivated meat?
IRFAN TAHIR: I first learned about cultivated meat in January 2019 through my biology professor who is a co-founder of Biftek, a cultivated meat start-up in Turkey.
SFA: How did you come to support cultivated meat?
IT: Until 2017, I was a regular meat-eater. I don't think there was even a single day that I went without eating meat. But, in 2017, I decided to stop eating meat due to moral reasons. After much deliberation and thought, I came to the conclusion it was absurd for me to value a few minutes of sensory pleasure I got while eating meat over that animal's entire existence. Naturally, when I learned about the revolutionary new technology of cultivated meat, I thought to myself, this is a really great way to convince people to stop eating animals. Since then, I have educated myself about the field and was fortunate enough to win a New Harvest fellowship for my Ph.D. Now, I work on growing cow meat in my lab at the University of Vermont.
SFA: Once cultivated meat is cheaper than and indistinguishable or superior in taste to slaughtered meat, what sort of impact might it have on traditional agriculture?
IT: I think it would have a huge impact. When that does happen, I think industries and people will realize that cultivated meat is just a better way of making food. It will be faster and more efficient while using fewer resources. Moreover, I am personally really excited to see new kinds of developments in foods that we have never seen before. For example, meats of exotic animals or meat with new flavors and tastes.
SFA: What would you say to progressives who are opposed to cultivated meat?
IT: I'd point them towards the countless ways traditional animal agriculture is absolutely destroying our planet. Are we going to have cultivated meat on grocery shelves in the next couple of years? Most probably not. But, I think at some point it is inevitable that we will see it there. The question is, will it take 20 years or 100 years? Right now, it's impossible to predict.
SFA: Would you eat cultivated meat, or is it just something you want available for others?
IT: Yes, as long as it doesn't involve animal cruelty.
SFA: Do you think activists should expend energy and resources to help advance cellular agriculture, by pushing for more government funding for cultivated-meat research?
IT: 100 percent. Right now, there's barely any government funding in cellular agriculture. Also, keep in mind that the United States government is not the only government in the world with a budget to fund big scientific projects. There are other players who are intelligent enough to see the huge potential (financial or otherwise) of cultivated meat.