Two months after Florida’s ban on cultivated meat came into effect, and a month before one goes live in Alabama, Illinois has joined a number of other states to try and outlaw these proteins.

House Representative Chris Miller, a third-generation cattle farmer, has introduced HB 5872, a bill to make the sale, manufacture or distribution of cultivated meat a Class C misdemeanour.

It means that if you sell cultivated meat, you’ll be treated the same way as you would if you possessed less than 2.5g of marijuana, assaulted someone, or left a firearm in your house that could easily be accessed by a minor. The penalty can result in 30 days of jail time, and/or $1,500 in fines.

A press release on the Representative’s website explains that HB 5872 was introduced as a response to “growing concerns from the notion of replacing real meat with laboratories”, and argued that it would protect “individual’s health, farmland, and agricultural products”.

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First, cultivated meat poses no health risks.

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Next, to make cultivated meat, you need sugars, minerals, and other inputs, which are agricultural products.

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And finally, the claim that this is a threat to farmland is laughable at best – research has shown that if produced by renewable energy, cultivated meat uses 90% less land than conventional beef. It has also been found to be three times more efficient at turning crops into meat than even the “most efficient” livestock.

This is an excerpt. Read the original post here