President Biden Backs Cultivated Meat in New Executive Order

EAT

Sep 21

President Joe Biden has signed a new executive order that will help accelerate development and innovation in the cellular agriculture industry.

United States President Joe Biden has signed a new executive order to advance biotechnology innovation, which includes exploring food technology solutions, specifically alternative proteins, as a way to improve food security.

“Today's action is going to ensure that America leads the world in biotechnology and biomanufacturing, creating jobs, reducing prices, strengthening supply chains so we don't have to rely on anywhere else in the world,” said Biden while speaking at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.

Biotechnology in relation to food can encompass methods such as cultivating animal products from cells and microbial fermentation. Cellular agriculture produces real animal meat directly from cells, rather than the animals themselves, which in turn removes the need to farm and slaughter the 55 billion land animals killed for food in the U.S. each year. Microbial fermentation can produce the identical milk proteins found in cow’s milk and provides the real taste, texture and nutritional value of animal-derived dairy but without the factory farming, lactose, hormones or antibiotics. These technologies are considered some of the leading solutions for tackling the environmental impact of our food system, while decreasing the risk of zoonotic diseases.

“Biotechnology harnesses the power of biology to create new services and products, which provide opportunities to grow the United States economy and workforce and improve the quality of our lives and the environment,” notes Biden’s order. “Although the power of these technologies is most vivid at the moment in the context of human health, biotechnology and biomanufacturing can also be used to achieve our climate and energy goals, improve food security and sustainability, secure our supply chains, and grow the economy across all of America.”

The executive order also says that for biotechnologies to achieve these goals, the U.S. “needs to invest in foundational scientific capabilities”, all while reducing any associated “biological risks”. This will see the government taking steps to “bolster and coordinate Federal investment in key research and development areas.”

In addition, Biden has confirmed the U.S. will accelerate the development of the industry. To do this it will “improve and expand domestic biomanufacturing production capacity and processes” alongside “piloting and prototyping efforts”.

Within 180 days of the order being signed by Biden, the Secretaries of Health and Human Services, Energy, Agriculture and Commerce, as well as the Director of the National Science Foundation will submit reports “assessing how to use biotechnology and biomanufacturing for food and agriculture innovation, including by improving sustainability and land conservation; increasing food quality and nutrition; increasing and protecting agricultural yields; protecting against plant and animal pests and diseases; and cultivating alternative food sources.”

Cultivated meat industry

Across the world, companies are striving to produce cell-cultured meat, dairy, eggs, and seafood, with the goal of producing cultured products at the same cost as their animal-based counterparts.

The industry has since grown to more than 60 companies on 6 continents, backed by $450M+ in investments, according to Good Food Institute (GFI). Major players in the cultivated market include Upside Foods, SuperMeat, Mosa Meat, Future Meat Technologies and the seafood producers Wildtype and Shiok Meats.

Singapore became the first country to grant approval for the commercial sale of cultivated meat, with Qatar expected to follow. Meanwhile, in Europe and the United States, companies continue to work through regulatory processes.

Last year, the USDA awarded Tufts University a $10 million grant to establish the first-ever government-funded, cultivated protein research center: the National Institute for Cellular Agriculture.

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