LETTER FROM ROME

Among the threats that were denounced in the speeches of the right-far right coalition in power in Italy is the existence of a rare, artificial substance whose production is still in its infancy: cultured meat. Grown in laboratories from stem cells and described by its proponents as a possible alternative to factory farming for the production of animal protein, this product developed by a handful of start-ups was presented by the Italian government as a risk to civilization.

On December 1, as part of a COP28 panel on food, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni warned against the prospect of scientific research on laboratory-based food production, potentially leading to a dystopian world "where the rich can eat natural food and synthetic food is for the poor."

Meloni's statements came in a national political context marked by the resounding adoption of a law making the country the first in the world to ban the production, importation and marketing of lab-grown meat. Promoted by the minister for agriculture and food sovereignty, Francesco Lollobrigida, who is also the prime minister's brother-in-law and a member of her inner circle, the measure is due to come into force on December 16.

According to this influential representative of Fratelli d'Italia (Meloni's national conservative right-wing party), cultured meat poses a real existential danger. In an interview with the news website Politico, the minister even presented the new law as intended to defend "civilization" from a sector deemed likely to harm Italian producers. "We are the first nation to ban [cultured meat], much to the chagrin of the multinationals who were hoping to make monstrous profits by jeopardizing jobs and citizens' health," he declared on his Facebook page on November 16, the day the law was passed.

Since coming to power in autumn 2022, the Italian government has been developing a vehement line of discourse against lab-grown meat, identifying it with out-of-touch, foreign forces posing a threat to national foods associated with Italy's deep-rooted identity. For a public opinion where culinary specialties, both artisanal and industrial, are often claimed as a sacred heritage to be defended, and where outraged or vindictive reactions can be triggered by anything that might be perceived as an attack on them, Lollobrigida's narrative is compelling.

His ally from the far-right Lega party, Matteo Salvini, vice-president of the Italian council, has even seized on it to bolster his eurosceptic diatribes. "I am convinced that European integration was not intended to multiply bureaucracy and open up to synthetic meat," he wrote in an op-ed published on December 6 by Corriere della Sera, Milan's leading daily with national circulation. In it, he likens cultured meat to the other major ills he associates with the European Union in its current form, such as seeking to get rid of internal combustion engines, overly restrictive environmental regulations and acceptance of unchecked immigration.

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