Wyoming And Montana Legislators Seek To Ban Lab-Grown Meat

Details about how meat for human consumption is grown in laboratories does not make for polite dinner conversation. Montana House Rep. Randyn Gregg, R-White Sulphur Springs, made that clear during a recentcommittee hearing when he offered this recipe for lab-grown meat.

“We're putting animal cell cultures in a stainless-steel vat where we put in a soup of amino acids and vitamins, minerals and extracted fetal bovine serum of our unborn calves,” Gregg told the Montana House Agriculture Committee, as he mixed in allusions to Hollywood science fiction during his testimony. 

Gregg described lab-grown meat as, “Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein meets Keanu Reeves in the Matrix,” and then closed his testimony with a quote from Jeff Goldblum in “Jurassic Park”: “Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.”

It appears a group of lawmakers in Montana and Wyoming believe their states should join Alabama and Florida in banning lab-grown meat. 

Wyoming House Bill 168 “prohibiting the manufacture, sale and distribution of cultivated meat for human consumption,” passed out of the House and awaits a vote in the Wyoming Senate. 

In Montana, House Bill 401 remains under consideration by the Montana House. During a Feb. 11 hearing, no one spoke out against the legislation.  

“This bill would follow along with other states and countries who have banned lab grown meat due to the unknown health effects and to protect food traditions, farmers and ranchers, and ultimately, public health,” said Rep. Braxton Mitchell, R-Columbia Falls, sponsor of HB 401.”I think we have a unique opportunity here to put the hammer down clearly and show that we stand with agriculture and that we stand with our cattle ranchers.”

Legislation to block the sale of lab-made meat products comes at a time when family ranches are celebrating a court victory over allegations that the nation’s big four meat packers conspired against family ranchers to bring down cattle prices.

Turns out, those same big four meat packers are also pushing lab-grown meat. 

Court Victory For Family Ranchers

Cattle ranchers have long complained about the “meat monopoly” held by the nation’s big four meat packing companies. 

Then Jan. 31, news broke about a $83.5 million class-action settlement with JBS, which along with Cargill, Tyson and National Beef, is one of the big four. 

The lawsuit, brought by the National Farmers Union, R-CALF USA and four cattle producers, alleges the companies conspired to "fix, depress, suppress or stabilize" the price of live cattle futures and options traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange from 2015 to 2020.

That kept millions of dollars from reaching the pockets of cattle ranchers in Wyoming, Montana and other cattle producing states. If the settlement is approved, payments would be made to ranchers and feedlots that directly sold fed cattle to the big four. 

The lawsuit alleges the big four companies leveraged their "consistent control" over the purchase of about 85% of fed cattle in the U.S.

"Packing defendants paid lower prices for fed cattle directly to producer plaintiffs and members of the producer class than they would have in a competitive market," the lawsuit said.

Now, according to recent testimony before the Montana Legislature, the big four meat producers are pushing the sale of lab-grown meat, which could also suppress the price of fed cattle. 

Big Four Back Meat Labs

“I wanted to briefly highlight some of the issues with the companies behind cell-cultured meat,” said Caroline Canarios, legislative director with the Northern Plains Resource Council. 

In her Feb. 11 testimony before the Montana House Agriculture Committee, Canarios told lawmakers, “The companies creating these products are not just like small tech startups. That's what you might see when you research them. But really they're heavily funded by the big four meat packers.”

Tyson, Cargill, JBS and National Beef have invested $100 million in these companies, said Canarios. 

“I think the reason is not just an interest in diversifying or thinking, ‘Oh, that's kind of a cool new technology.’ But rather in owning the means of production, which is our ranchers,” said Canarios, suggesting the big four producers appear ready to replace traditional cattle ranching with high tech labs that make steak and other cuts of lab-grown meats. 

“Once they're able to do that, our ranchers will be out of business,” said Canarios. “We appreciate that this bill seeks to get out ahead of this new product before it's really coming to our plates. And to protect the consumer safety aspect of it.”

“We feel it's within the legislature's purview to regulate these products, not just for that consumer safety,” added Canarios. “But also to preserve the economic viability for ranching in Montana.”

Wyoming Ranchers Saw This Coming

Ever since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ruled that lab-grown meat was safe for human consumption in 2022, opposition has continued to grow among Wyoming beef producers. 

“Lab-grown meat is not as healthy as natural beef, and it's no better for the environment,” Wyoming Sen, Ogden Driskill, R-Devils Tower, told Cowboy State Daily last May. “I think it’s all nonsense.”

Driskill is now one of the sponsors of HB 168 proposing to ban lab-made meats in Wyoming. 

Driskill said he and other Wyoming ranchers aren’t concerned about competing with lab-made cultured meat. 

“The Intermountain West is made for raising beef,” he said. “It’s an efficient way to use a big chunk of the country where you can’t raise crops. Our beef product is healthy, nutritious and environmentally friendly.”

A 2023 study from the University of California Davis found that while, “lab-grown meat, which is cultured from animal cells, is often thought to be more environmentally friendly,” research from UC-Davis paints a different picture. 

The study found that lab-grown or “cultivated” meat’s environmental impact is likely to be “orders of magnitude” higher than retail beef based on current and near-term production methods, according to a press release from UC-Davis.

Even if it ever enters the market, lab-grown meat could still be too expensive to compete with Wyoming beef.

A 2022 paper from the Department of Agricultural Economics at Oklahoma State University projects “optimistically” that the economics of lab-grown meat are far more expensive that raising beef. It projected culture-grown meat’s cost at nearly $29 a pound.

Warrie Means, retired associate dean of the University of Wyoming College of Agriculture, Life Sciences and Natural Resources, told Cowboy State Daily that the best market for growing meat in a lab might be seafood.

Artificial seafood like snow crab “products are already $10 or $15 per pound,” he said. “Maybe they’ll be able to compete in that kind of economic market.”

David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.