By: Nicole J. Ligon*
Abstract
In May 2024, Florida and Alabama became the first states to ban the production and sale of lab-grown meat. Driven by a desire to protect the traditional agriculture industry, these new laws impose severe penalties on anyone found to have even stored lab-grown meat products in their home. The legislation follows in the footsteps of other laws aimed at offering the traditional agriculture industry additional protections. Florida, Alabama, and eleven other states already have “food disparagement laws” that make it easier to punish critics of traditional agriculture companies. Additionally, six states, including Alabama, currently have laws aimed at stifling undercover investigations into agricultural practices on farms and plants.
When bans on lab-grown meat co-exist with other laws designed to protect the traditional agricultural industry from criticism and accountability, the public loses the ability and willingness to freely engage in discourse aimed at discerning whether the bans are beneficial. Under current legal frameworks, the potential benefits of lab-grown meat, which may include lowering greenhouse gas emissions and reducing food contamination from pathogens like E. coli, cannot be properly weighed against the potential downsides, such as profit losses for traditional agribusinesses and new health risks.
This Article examines how the traditional agriculture industry has used legal tools to silence discussion on matters that could lead to significant innovation and improvement in human health and safety. Through the lens of these new bans on lab-grown meat, this Article considers the ways in which the public loses out on being able to make well-informed decisions about their food consumption due to restrictions on speech within the agricultural context. As a society, it is imperative that we scrutinize these regulations and advocate for policies that ensure food safety and protect access to information regarding agricultural practices. The future of food production may or may not include lab-grown meat, but the decision of whether to change our diets should rest with a well-informed public.
* Assistant Professor of Law at Campbell University School of Law. The author would like to thank Jeff Powell, Bobbi Jo Boyd, and Joel Kurtzberg for their continued guidance and mentorship. Thank you to Laurel Szalkowski ‘25 for her editing assistance.