DoD yields to livestock lobby, cancels military cultivated meat funding program

In the US, lobbying from the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association has prompted the Department of Defense to cancel plans to fund research into cultivated meat for military consumption.

The DoD put out a call in May for funding applications for sustainable food and materials technologies with military applications that reduced emissions via bioindustrial processes. The call, made on behalf of the DoD by BioMade’s Sustainable Logistics for Advanced Manufacturing Project, said qualifying projects could receive between $500,000 and $2 million.

The NCBA condemned the move, calling it “outrageous,” and a “giant slap in the face to everyone that has served our country” that the DoD would spend taxpayer dollars to “feed our heroes like lab rats.”