IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - March 2015 - 63

would provide inexpensive protein to the poor and
alleviate global hunger. Other respondents predicted
little to no change in global hunger and listed three possible reasons. First, according to participants, the problem of global hunger is one of distribution rather than
production and IVM would not impact food distribution.
Second, should a company try to build a production facility in a developing nation, it would be limited to those
nations that have a preexisting industrial infrastructure,
thereby limiting economic benefits to nations where
development is already underway. Third, cultured meat
could remain very expensive, possibly due to the presence of intellectual property rights, and therefore remain
unaffordable to the poor. The most pessimistic workshop
members reflected on the topic of intellectual property
rights and feared that IVM could be seen as an economic
tool for "global corporate crackdowns on rogue producers," and that famines might be seen by corporations as
opportunities "to lock in brand commitments."

Food System Security
Uncertainty also surrounded the impact of cultured meat
on food security, but focused on two factors: vulnerability and centralization. Factory production of cultured
meat was judged to be less vulnerable to disease and
environmental changes than livestock operations, and
it was therefore determined to be more secure. Others
considered the role of centralized production in food
security, but found it to be an ambiguous factor. One
respondent associated large, central carneries with ease
of protection and thus greater security. By contrast, others placed greater emphasis on the risk of food supply
disruption in the event of a successful attack on a large,
centralized plant and suggested that building many small
carneries would lessen the severity of any given attack.
This discussion proved to be an interesting introduction
to the issue of food system security, but may serve primarily to highlight the need for additional analysis.

Regulation
The need for adequate regulation of cultured meat was
noted around two major concerns: sanitary conditions
and labeling requirements. Many participants wanted to
be certain that the meat products were made in clean
facilities but acknowledged that some standards might
favor industrial production and put smaller artisan producers at a financial disadvantage.
Participants hoped that labeling requirements would
reduce ambiguity associated with the sources and production methods of natural and cultured meat products.
While concern was expressed that companies would try
to label meat as "real" when, in fact, it was cultured, the
labeling objective was reversed when it came to selling meat from endangered species. Participants were
MARCH 2015

∕

Workshop participants believed that
cultured meat would reduce animal
cruelty and suffering.

concerned that meat would be labeled cultured when in
fact an animal had been killed. Simultaneously, participants acknowledged that there was no guarantee that
the ability to engineer meat from endangered species
would diminish the culling of protected animals.
However, some participants anticipated greater regulation of traditional meat production. In particular, they
said, confined feeding operations ("factory farming")
would be made illegal due to animal rights protests, so
any livestock meat produced would be on the cottage
industry level. Yet another expressed concern that these
"specialty growers of real meat" would also come under
scrutiny for a variety of tainting problems experienced
by those who receive insufficient training in "natural"
food preparation, i.e., the need to cook it thoroughly.

Identifying Unacknowledged Implications
The stated goals of this investigation were twofold: to
identify previously unacknowledged implications of cultured meat in areas already under discussion (e.g., human
health, global hunger, and ethics), and to consider possible consequences in systems that are less obviously
and less directly coupled to food production. The method
chosen for addressing these goals was the assembly of
focus groups. We readily acknowledge that the participants were primarily American scholars and that the lack
of diversity may have biased and limited the scope of
the findings. Nonetheless, we note that the workshops
produced complex and often contradictory narratives representing a wide range of possible futures and unintended
consequences associated with this emerging technology.
This outcome was aided by the tendency of panelists to
both build on and disagree with the ideas of others, and
to express skepticism regarding simple, one-sided views of
cultured meat. Participants raised important points regarding the coevolution of this technology with the world at
large, and expressed uncertainty about all developmental
steps related to the emerging technology.
Among the points of uncertainty was whether IVM
would be commercialized and adopted at all. Technical challenges remain, but even if these are overcome,
consumer acceptance is not guaranteed. Food has
important meanings for many individuals and is often
closely related to personal and cultural identities. For

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