Florida governor signs ban on lab-grown meat

(The Center Square) — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a bill on Wednesday that bans the sale of lab-grown meat as part of efforts by state officials that are intended to boost the state's agricultural sector.

Ron DeSantis signed Senate Bill 1084, prohibiting the sale of lab-grown meat in Florida. He also said at a news conference in Hardee County that the Sunshine State is upping its beef production to keep up with demand.

In addition, DeSantis said that Florida is supporting the state's agriculture and meat industry by modernizing the Right to Farm Act, reestablishing funding for the Rural and Family Lands Protection Program with $300 million in funding and investing more than $2.8 billion into the industry itself.

"We want to make sure we protect agriculture activities from frivolous litigation," DeSantis said. "We've also signed legislation to ensure that agri-tourism operators qualify for protection against property tax assessments when operating on agricultural land, we also simplified steps for Florida farmers to receive sales-tax exemptions for agricultural materials."

DeSantis said that the legislation is part of a continued effort to have a vibrant agricultural industry. He added the legislation is intended to protect the industry from natural disasters and also from man.

"What we're protecting here is the industry against acts of man," DeSantis said "Against an ideological agenda that wants to finger agriculture as the problem, that views things like raising cattle as destroying our climate. These will be people who will lecture the rest of us about things like global warming…meanwhile, they're flying to Davos in their private jets."

DeSantis noted that the people who hold these ideologies like the World Economic Forum only want to impose restrictions on everyday people, while they do whatever they want. DeSantis further noted that policies have already been enacted to protect Floridians from being forced into a social credit score system as in China.

"I think what they're looking to do is create a social credit score system…We see the threat for what it is," DeSantis said.

DeSantis stated that is not a vision that has taken hold in Florida and that those at the WEF want to eliminate meat production and farming all together.

"They want to eliminate meat, they want to eliminate cattle, they want to eliminate chickens…they want to create protein in laboratories," DeSantis said. "So essentially lab-created meat, and their goal is to get to a point where you will not be raising cattle."