Italian Agriculture Minister Francesco Lollobrigida stated this at a party congress of the European Conservative ECR faction. An earlier intended ban had to be withdrawn by Rome at the behest of the European Commission because such a ban was considered ‘market-distorting.’
Conservative Italian politicians say that European farmers, breeders, and fishers risk paying a high price for the ideological mistakes behind the European Union's Green Deal. According to Italy, emission reduction targets will only lead to a decrease in food production. Agricultural organizations in Austria and Switzerland have also recently spoken out against the introduction of fake meat.
This summer, the first application for approval of artificially produced imitation meat was submitted in the non-EU country Switzerland. The evaluation process is still ongoing. It is likely only a matter of time before lab-grown meat hits the market in Switzerland and later in the EU as well, even though there is currently no approval process underway in the EU.
Austrian Agriculture Minister Georg Strasser advocates for synthetic food to have its own label so that customers know it is not a ‘natural’ food product. “We demand a fact-based dialogue with society and oppose equating the natural products of our farmers with artificially produced food,” Strasser emphasizes. Consumers should be able to recognize what they are buying.
Lab-grown meat would be a competitor to domestic meat production. Annually, 641,000 cattle are slaughtered in Austria. Half of the agricultural land there consists of grassland. A large portion of the grain is used as animal feed.
According to the UN, by 2050 there will be approximately 10 billion people on Earth whose food supply must be ensured. Large companies see artificially produced imitation meat as a future solution for food security, climate protection, and animal welfare.