A defence of cellular agriculture

Abstract

AbstractCellular agriculture includes both growing meat from animal cells (cultivated meat) and genetically modifying non-animal cells to produce animal products (precision fermentation, including cultivated milk). It represents a major potential route to animal-rights-respecting animal products, and, thus, non-vegan food systems in the zoopolis. This chapter reviews and responds to challenges to cellular agriculture, noting that many of the challenges to plant-based meat canvassed in Chapter 3 also apply. First, it addresses challenges to cultivated meat: that it contains animal ingredients; that it rests upon historical injustice; and that it reifies a moral hierarchy through creating animal (but not human) meat. Second, it addresses challenges to precision fermentation, focusing on cultivated milk: that milk is not food; that precision fermentation involves genetic engineering, which we should reject; and that precision fermentation does not require animals, meaning the end of many human/animal interactions.