WAUCHULA -- Governor DeSantis signed the first bill of its kind in the United States, banning the sale or cultivation of lab-grown meats in Florida.
Speaking to an audience of cattle ranchers and Future Farmers of America members in Wauchula, DeSantis said that the free market can not be allowed to decide whether lab meats succeed, because lab meats are only a Trojan horse to give "Davos elites" the power to ban cattle farming altogether. "What they want to do is put it out there and say, 'wait a minute, you can do this in a lab, you don't need to (raise) cattle and do all this, so why don't you just phase that out," DeSantis said.
DeSantis described lab-grown meat as the spearhead of a movement backed by the World Economic Forum that wants people to believe that consuming insects as protein is a way to battle climate change. "I'm sure they'll say, 'hey wait a minute, just hear us out before you say yuck.' I say Florida has heard enough on that," DeSantis said.
Calling cattle ranching a part of Florida's history that precedes statehood in 1845, DeSantis declared that Florida "stands with agriculture and cattle ranchers."
The ban does not apply to alternatives to meat such as veggie burgers.
Photo: Getty Images