Cultivated Meat and the Livestock Industry

Overview

This three-year project, titled Social Implications of Cellular Agriculture Technology in the Livestock Industry (SICATLI), is funded by the USDA and aims to 1) investigate the social implications of the development of cell-cultivated meat technology on the livestock industry, with a particular focus on meatpacking workers and cow-calf producers, and 2) to develop a methodology that projects the potential social impacts of new food technologies along the supply chain (i.e., prospective social life cycle assessment or prospective S-LCA). Our team will use mixed methods - encompassing interviews, focus groups, surveys, and choice experiments - to understand meatpacking workers and beef producers' concerns and technological impacts on their livelihoods and communities, as well as to investigate how these concerns align with consumer priorities. Through prospective S-LCA, we will also model the impacts that cell-cultivated beef could have on beef supply chains nationwide under various scenarios.

Award Acknowledgement

Grant #2024-67023-42682

Three team members on stage in front of a blue curtain

Uncovering the Social Impacts of a Cultivated Meat Boom

A new research project aims to understand how the growth of the cell-cultured meat industry could impact farmers and workers in the conventional beef supply chain.