Rep. John Sjaarda (R-2/Valley Springs) wants to ban test-tube meat for ten years. Rep. Julie Auch (R-18/Yankton) wants to treat cell-cultured protein like shit.
Rep. Auch is prime sponsor of House Bill 1077, which would add “cultivated-protein food product” to the existing criteria for “adulterated” food. These criteria, in SDCL 39-4-2, include substances that are added to food to reduce quality or to conceal damage or inferiority, “poisonous or otherwise deleterious” ingredients, “filthy, decomposed, or putrid animal or vegetable substance, or of any portion of any animal unfit for food“, “a portion of a diseased animal or of an animal which has been fed upon the uncooked offal from a slaughterhouse or other substance unfit for animal food, or of one that has died otherwise than by slaughter“, and food that “is not at all times securely protected from all filth, flies, dust, contamination, or other unclean, unhealthful, or insanitary conditions.”
In other words, HB 1077 declares that cultivated meat, grown in clean bioreactors, farther removed from manure and mad-cow than any meat critter, deserves the same legal treatment as roadkill and pig poop. By deeming cultivated protein an adulteration of food, HB 1077 would make manufacture, transportation, distribution, sale of test-tube meat a Class 2 misdemeanor. The transportation ban in SDCL 39-4-19 applies to “any article of food which is adulterated”, not just commercial quantities or shipments intended for sale, so HB 1077 would appear to ban South Dakotans from driving across the border to any neighboring state that respects science and consumer choice, buying some test-tube chicken nuggets, and bringing them home.
I miss the good old days when we could count on Republicans to defend science, progress, and opportunities for economic diversification. But Auch, co-sponsor Sjaarda, and other South Dakota Republicans seem determined to push hidebound food policy.