Cultivated meat is produced from animal cells without slaughtering animals. Its development represents a potential transformation in the relationship between food production and animal welfare.
Cultivated meat has the potential to largely eliminate the need for farm animal slaughter while delivering the meat products consumers demand. If it succeeds at scale, its welfare impact would be enormous — billions of animals no longer raised and slaughtered annually. The remaining welfare concerns center on the small number of donor animals needed for cell lines, the inputs used in production, and whether the technology will actually achieve price parity and consumer acceptance at scale. Supporting the technology while maintaining welfare scrutiny of production methods is the appropriate advocacy stance.