JF

Of course the immediate question is then: even so, why should there be public spending (or why should there be a proportion of economic capacity) allocated to the development of cellular agriculture?

I’m going to go say something perhaps unpopular amongst my vegan friends, but IMO, the goal of lab meat should be very tightly constrained. It should not be a reduction of animal suffering.

A large majority of the world’s population does not share the animal ethics of vegans.

(And, as the Global South develops, they will increasingly want more meat in their diet, and perhaps rightly so. Evolution made us find meat more tasty than many other things for a reason: in moderate amounts, it’s good for us)

So voters will only support public investment via say industrial policy to make animal-free meat competitive for something that benefits them…

…in other words, if the aim is understood instead as primarily assisting with A) reducing and ultimately eliminating GHGs; B) reducing land footprint of agriculture, and c) producing a cheaper equivalent product.

(BTW can anyone point me to lamb and wool’s proportion of agriculture’s contribution to climate change? I’m having trouble finding absolute rather than per-unit numbers)