(Robert Jonathan, Headline USA) In what might amount to a rebuke of climate alarmists in the authoritarian European Union and those in the extreme animal rights cohort, Italy has given preliminary approval for a ban on lab-grown meat.
The executive branch of the Italy-first government under populist Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni endorsed the measure, which would impose a penalty of up to $60,000 (in the euro equivalent) for violations and allow officials to confiscate synthetic food derived from animal cells.
A victory for farmers in a country where agriculture is a key component of its economy, the law is subject to final approval by parliament before it goes into effect.
Some might consider this also a victory for those who maintain that consuming real meat, i.e., natural animal protein, is key to a nutrient-rich diet and therefore lifespan and healthspan.
Globalists practically had a nervous breakdown when Meloni, at the head of an election-winning populist-conservative coalition, became the country’s PM in 2022, so they probably are experiencing an upset stomach with this latest development.
After her cabinet gave its approval to the draft legislation, Mediterranean-diet-fan Merloni said, “We couldn’t help but celebrate with our farmers a measure that puts Italy into the vanguard on a theme not only in the defense of excellence, a particularly important subject for us, but also on the theme of the defense of consumers,” Fox News reported.
Francesco Lollobrigida, Italy’s minister of agriculture, food sovereignty and forests asserted that “Laboratory products do not guarantee quality, well-being and the protection of the Italian food and wine culture and tradition, to which part of our tradition is linked,” the BBC reported.
“A government statement said the ban on lab-grown food was proposed, ‘in respect for the principle of precaution,’ to protect human health and Italy’s ‘farm-food heritage,'” Fox added.
In another snub to the Net Zero advocates among international bureaucratic institutions, the Merloni administration has also taken steps to prohibit “the use of flour derived from insects such as crickets and locusts in pizza or pasta,” the BBC noted, or at least require warning labels to inform consumers that a product is bug-based.
In the name of climate change mitigation as it relates to reducing meat consumption, it appears that the EU and other globalist entities intent on a so-called Great Reset are determined to put family livestock farmers, in particular, out of business, despite the implications of a potential food shortage.
This initiative is occurring even though many of these famers have implemented various sustainable practices.
Protests against the heavy-handed, irrational tactics led to the upset election victory by the grassroots Farmer-Citizen Movement — the BoerBurgerBeweging or BBB — earlier this month in the Netherlands, a country that is said to be the Europe’s largest meat exporter.
The U.K. publication Unherd explained:
“The BBB grew out of the mass demonstrations against the Dutch government’s proposal to cut nitrogen emissions by 50% in the country’s farming sector by 2030 — a target designed to comply with the European Union’s emission-reduction rules. While large farming companies have the means to meet these goals — by using less nitrogen fertilizer and reducing the number of their livestock — smaller, often family-owned farms would be forced to sell or shutter.”
Since the Netherlands apparently contributes about a paltry 0.4% of CO2 emissions, Unherd suggested that the end game for this draconian policy is to facilitate a land grab by multinational corporations
Meat spawned in labs is already progressing towards regulatory approval via the Food and Drug Administration and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
