IN BAD TASTE: Italy passes law to become first country to ban cultured meat
If the EU approves cultivated meat for human consumption, Italy will not be able to prohibit it. The EU itself has expressed support for alt-protein and sustainable food production: its Parliament’s Agriculture Committee has voted to implement a strategy to increase the production of plant proteins.
ANAY MRIDUL: It has been in the making for a while, but Italy has officially passed the law that bans the production and sale of cultivated meat within the country, with the far-right government citing health reasons, a risk to the country’s tradition, and a need to safeguard the livestock industry. The move also bans the use of meat-related terms such as ‘steak’ and ‘salami’ on plant-based meat product labelling. Italy’s lower house of parliament has approved a bill by its agriculture minister to ban the sale and production of cultivated meat in the country, making it the first to do so.
The law, which includes a plant-based meat labelling ban, has introduced fines between €10,000 and €60,000 for each violation. The law described non-traditional foods like cultivated meat and insect protein as a threat to Italy’s food culture. This has been a familiar rhetoric ever since Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her far-right Brothers of Italy party gained power in the centre last year, and the latest move has already attracted controversy from multiple corners across Europe.
Agriculture minister Francesco Lollobrigida – who is Meloni’s brother-in-law – called the ban a “brave measure demanded by citizens . . . that puts Italy at the vanguard of the world”. In a Facebook post, he said: “We are the first nation to ban it, with all due respect to the multinationals who hope to make monstrous profits by putting citizens’ jobs and health at risk”…
Industry body the Italian Alliance for Complementary Proteins said this bill “tells Italians what they can and can’t eat, stifles innovation and likely violates EU law”. Italy may not be able to impose the ban on the sale of cultivated meat produced within the EU, as its common single market enables the free movement of goods and services…
The International Organization for Animal Protection, an Italy animal advocacy group, called the ban “completely useless today”, as cultivated meat hasn’t been approved for human consumption in the EU and therefore cannot be marketed”. It added that if it is approved, Italy will not be able to prohibit it. This was echoed by Stefano Lattanzi, CEO of Italian cultivated meat consortium Bruno Cell, who told TIME that “this frontal attack from the government” makes no sense: “We are working on solutions for a climate-changed future.”
The EU itself has expressed support for alt-protein and sustainable food production: its Parliament’s Agriculture Committee has voted to implement a strategy to increase the production of plant proteins. And just last month, it voted in favour of the Plant Protein Strategy, calling on member states to boost the production and consumption of sustainable protein crops (though it did defend the role of animal proteins in diets and ecosystems too). SOURCE…
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