Guy Trafford assesses international developments in the synthetic meat and dairy markets and widely varying nature the spreading legal pushback efforts

With the local front being relatively quiet at the moment, it seemed timely to have a scan at what is happening in some of our markets. We already know that demand for our meat products are 'down' (and that’s putting a positive face on it!) but what else is occurring overseas?

Something out of the USA that will put a smile on to livestock growers is a legislative proposal in Arizona making it illegal to “misrepresent” a product as meat when it clearly is not. The bill seeks to prohibit labelling any product as meat that are derived from animal cultured cells in a laboratory. The proposed bill would apply to any “synthetic product derived from plant, insect or other source”.

While there are advantages in keeping onside with the powerful cattle lobby the bill does not stop the “offering and purchasing” of non-meat alternatives. The stated aim of the bill is more about “transparency and disclosure”.

Arizona is just one of several states who have made similar moves. These include Florida which hopes to ban “lab grown meat” altogether. Texas which requires “clear labelling of analogs (an analog, is a compound having a structure similar to that of another compound) of meat, poultry, seafood and eggs as well as cultivated meat”. Nebraska, which requires clear labelling of alternative proteins. Further afield, Italy also last year approved bans upon lab-grown food. The new law “prohibits the use, sale, import and export of food and feed from cell cultures or tissue derived from vertebrate animals". Much of the push back against ‘synthetic foods’ comes as a result of the absence of long-term nutritional studies and the real health benefits, or otherwise. However, in Italy much of the motivation appears to be to “protect” Italy’s long and rich food culture.

The moves don’t come without push back from the alternative and synthetic food companies who are saying the conventional meat companies are scared of competition and state are unnecessary and in the US work against the 1st Amendment of free speech. They say there is no trademark of words and the legislation is an over step of government. However, with laws already in place in several states we may see a subtle change in terminology of alternative foods, at least coming out of the US.

Perhaps interestingly, among the conversations milk and dairy products failed to be mentioned. At the moment this is perhaps the larger threat to New Zealand agricultural exports.

A company in Israel has just reported to have put in a 100,000 litre capacity fermentation plant (with aims to treble the capacity) to make artificial milk.  The manufacturing announcement comes on the heels of Imagindairy (the Israeli company) receiving a “no questions” response letter from the U.S. Food & Drug Administration last month for the “Generally Recognized as Safe notice “submitted by the company. This signifies that the ingredient is safe to be used in food and beverage products, providing a regulatory ‘green light’ for manufacturers in the space to partner with Imagindairy. The company state they hope to be able to compete with ‘real’ milk on price.

Staying with the States. The US Farm Bill (passed back in 2018) was due for its next overhaul before Christmas 2023. However, the Biden administration have managed to get it extended through to September 2024. This has saved them from an inevitable bun fight in the short term but given the US elections are being held in November suddenly makes the Farm Bill a political football.

If the Bill was not extended and agreement was not able to be reached then for US farmers, the real risk of a farm bill expiration comes at the end of their crop marketing year, which is different depending on the commodity produced. That’s when commodity support programs, which ensure financial certainty and help reduce risk from market volatility and extreme weather, are set to end. The dairy industry would have been the first to see their commodity support program expire beginning Jan. 1, 2024. At that point, programs would revert back to what they were under the 1938 and 1949 farm bills, commonly known as permanent law. Going back to permanent law would cause upheaval in commodity markets, push consumer prices exponentially higher and allow some producers to rake in government payments while others lose support entirely.

In the case of dairy, permanent law would require the USDA to pay 2.5 times the current market price of milk, which could upend commercial markets and raise the retail price of milk, according to a report from the Congressional Research Service. So, while the extension buys time, the farm bill which manages hundreds of billions of dollars in commodity, nutrition, and conservation programs is still going to have to be dealt with.

Their government has been trying to reduce the cost of the bill to the nation but with it now coinciding with elections, farmers will no doubt be lobbying hard to get the most advantageous terms. Given US farmers see New Zealand more as a threat than a friend when it comes to agriculture it won’t be surprising to see some attempts at reducing New Zealand access.