Commentary
Now that companies promoting lab-based dairy and lab-grown foods are getting FDA approval, it’s time to have an uncomfortable but important discussion about the push to reinvent the American diet.
Lab-based dairy, we’re told, is the future. Removing dairy cows from the equation means fewer methane emissions. The environment wins. But you know who loses? Millions of dairy farmers worldwide. Lab-based dairy promises many positives but fails to mention the potential, rather catastrophic downsides of shunning dairy. To “save the environment,” it seems, traditional farming practices must be destroyed.
The global dairy industry is under attack. From Ireland to India, dairy farmers are being forced out by the elites, who believe the dairy industry needs a radical overhaul. They say synthetic milk, also referred to as lab-grown dairy, is the future.
According to the researcher Milena Bojovic, we should embrace the lab-engineered revolution because it doesn’t require using dairy cows or other animals. Moreover, with “increasing calls to move beyond animal-based food systems to more sustainable forms of food production,” now is the time for change. Bojovic argues that this is a matter of “animal welfare.”
But what about human welfare?
The push to make synthesized milk mainstream will devastate local economies and upend the lives of dairy farmers around the world. Today, there are 116 million dairy farmers worldwide; by 2030, due to government overreach and lab-based initiatives, there will be 104 million. The United States is home to 30,000 dairy farmers. Twenty years ago, that number was 70,000.
Dairy farmers are disappearing when the world needs them more than ever. Tens of millions of people across the globe rely on dairy products to survive. Many of these people live in poorer countries. Cow’s milk protein, for example, is a key ingredient in products used to treat malnourished children (by the end of the decade, there will be 129 million malnourished children worldwide).
Cow’s milk is nutrient-rich, providing protein and micronutrients like calcium, magnesium, selenium, riboflavin, and vitamins B5 and B12. Consumption of milk is directly associated with a reduced risk of developing osteoporosis and possibly even colorectal cancer. Can the same be said about synthetic milk? In short, no. Synthetic milk lacks vital nutrients. This should come as no surprise. After all, the word “synthetic” is just a fancy synonym for fake. But there’s nothing fake about the lab-grown push to completely overhaul the agricultural sector.
Dairy cows are seen in their barn after being milked. Cole Burston/Getty Images
Fake Foods, Real Risks
The crackdown on dairy must be viewed through a much broader lens. To fully comprehend the scale of the operation, one must discuss the World Economic Forum (WEF), the international organization behind the Great Reset. The elites in Davos fully intend to transform the agricultural industry. There is a concerted effort to drive farmers away from farming, to replace humans with machines, to replace real milk with fake milk, and to replace real meat with lab-grown meat—all in the name of sustainability.In 2009, the WEF launched the New Vision for Agriculture (NVA). According to an official WEF document, the initiative was designed to “simultaneously deliver food security, environmental sustainability and economic opportunity.” The WEF has given itself until 2050 to meet this lofty goal. Interestingly, Monsanto, the agrochemical corporation plagued by various scandals, was once an NVA partner. Even more interestingly, Bayer Crop Science, which bought Monsanto in 2016, is still an active partner.
One of the funders of the initiative is the government of the Netherlands. The Dutch government is desperately attempting to reduce the country’s nitrogen emissions. Much to the dismay of Dutch farmers, achieving this goal means slashing the number of cattle, chickens, sheep, and pigs by 30 percent. Not surprisingly, Dutch leaders are fully behind the lab-grown agenda.
The push to make agriculture more “sustainable” and environmentally friendly is also playing out in the United States. In March, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) put forward an ESG proposal that directly threatens the well-being of the country’s 2 million farmers.
Lab-grown foods may or may not “save the planet,” but they will most certainly destroy farming. They may also destroy our health. Take Impossible Burger, for example, a new food item that uses a number of ingredients not found in the average kitchen. In March, as CNBC reported at the time, Impossible Foods, the Californian-based company behind the burger, announced that its fourth-quarter retail revenue for 2021 had increased by 85 percent. The profits are healthy, but can the same be said for the burger?
According to Dr. Joseph Mercola, most definitely not. “Testing reveals Impossible Burger contains 11.3 ppb of glyphosate,” noted Mercola, before adding that “animal studies show 0.1 ppb of glyphosate can alter the function of more than 4,000 liver and kidney genes and cause organ damage.”
The move to the unnatural is being pushed by influential billionaires like Richard Branson and Bill Gates, both of whom have invested sizable sums in lab-grown ventures. In an interview with MIT Technology Review, Gates said that rich nations like the United States should switch entirely to synthetic beef. The climate activist also singled out the abovementioned Impossible Foods for praise, a company he has helped finance.
As we move further away from the real and readily embrace the unreal—fake meat, fake milk, fake beauty standards, fake science, fake news, fake new worlds (see the Metaverse)—important questions must be asked. Where is humanity headed? To a place where drones replace farmers, and lab-generated gruel replaces actual food, that’s where. To a place where human beings, human agency, and an overall sense of purpose are removed from the agricultural equation.
Food is something that transcends culture, politics, and ideologies. It is one of the few things that give us genuine comfort.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
