When advocating that governments invest more in alt proteins, the following angles are typically used:
climate/environmental
bioeconomy (i.e. if you invest in this, it will create more jobs in your country)
food security
I understand the latter two are generally popular with right-wing governments; either of these two positions can be advanced without referencing climate at all (which may be preferable in some cases for the reasons Ben outlines)
I’m working from brief conversations with the relevant experts, rather than having conducted in-depth research on this topic. My understanding is:
the food security angle is most useful for a country which imports a significant amounts of its food; where this is true, the whole argument is premised on the idea that domestic food producers will be preserved and strengthened, so it doesn’t naturally invite opposition.
the economy / job creation angle is again couched in terms of “increasing the size of the pie”—i.e. adding more jobs to the domestic economy and not taking away from the existing work. Again, this doesn’t seem to naturally invite opposition from incumbent food producers.
I guess in either case it’s possible for the food/agriculture lobby to nonetheless recognise that alt proteins could be a threat to them and object. I don’t know how common it is for this actually happen.
When advocating that governments invest more in alt proteins, the following angles are typically used:
climate/environmental
bioeconomy (i.e. if you invest in this, it will create more jobs in your country)
food security
I understand the latter two are generally popular with right-wing governments; either of these two positions can be advanced without referencing climate at all (which may be preferable in some cases for the reasons Ben outlines)
The second two points don’t seem obviously correct to me.
First, the US already has a significant amount of food security, so its unclear whether cultivated meats would actually add much.
Second, If cultivated meats destroy the animal agriculture industry, this could very easily lead to a net loss of jobs in the economy.
Do you have any sense of how they play against the concerns of the much more powerful food & agriculture lobby?
I’m working from brief conversations with the relevant experts, rather than having conducted in-depth research on this topic. My understanding is:
the food security angle is most useful for a country which imports a significant amounts of its food; where this is true, the whole argument is premised on the idea that domestic food producers will be preserved and strengthened, so it doesn’t naturally invite opposition.
the economy / job creation angle is again couched in terms of “increasing the size of the pie”—i.e. adding more jobs to the domestic economy and not taking away from the existing work. Again, this doesn’t seem to naturally invite opposition from incumbent food producers.
I guess in either case it’s possible for the food/agriculture lobby to nonetheless recognise that alt proteins could be a threat to them and object. I don’t know how common it is for this actually happen.