A committee of South Dakota legislators advanced a bill Tuesday at the Capitol in Pierre that would define lab-grown meat and require it to be clearly labeled.

The state Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources proposed the legislation. Cheyenne Tant, a policy adviser for the department, explained it to legislators.

“South Dakota consumers deserve transparency when deciding whether to purchase a product grown in a lab versus products grown by our hardworking farmers and ranchers,” Tant said.

The House Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee voted 13-0 to send the bill to the full House of Representatives.

Was that chicken cutlet grown in a lab? These states (including SD) want you to know.

The legislation describes lab-grown meat as “cell-cultured protein” and defines it as “a product that is produced for use as human food, made wholly or in part from any cell culture or the DNA of a host animal, and grown or cultivated outside a live animal.”

The bill also says any product that contains cell-cultured protein without being clearly labeled as “cell-cultured” or “lab-grown” would be considered misbranded. That provision builds on a state law adopted in 2019 that prohibits the mislabeling of meat. Enforcement would fall to the state Animal Industry Board, Tant said, which could work with companies to change their labels or take steps to remove noncompliant products from South Dakota shelves.

Nobody testified against the bill, and supporters represented diverse interests.

Hunter Roberts, secretary of the Department of Agriculture and Natural Resources, called lab-grown meat “gross.” Several groups representing farmers and ranchers said they want transparency in labeling to differentiate their traditionally raised meat from lab-grown versions.

Good Food Institute, a group that works to advance innovation in alternative proteins, also supported the bill. The nonpartisan, nonprofit organization was represented at the committee meeting by Erin Rees Clayton, a Pierre-based senior scientific adviser for the institute.

She said producers of alternative proteins also want to differentiate their products.

“Just as South Dakota farmers and ranchers are proud of their products, cultivated meat producers are proud of their products, too,” Rees Clayton said. “They want to celebrate the innovation and production processes behind the meat they produce.”

She said lab-cultivated meat has existed for a little more than a decade. It starts from a small sample of animal cells that are fed the sugars, water, proteins and vitamins needed to grow into muscle and fat.

“Cultivated meat is meat at the cellular level, offering similar taste, texture and safety profiles,” Rees Clayton said. “It’s just produced in a different way.”

She said the fledgling industry may someday be able to help satisfy the rising global population’s demand for protein. It could also add resiliency to food supply chains, she said, because it’s less vulnerable to natural disasters and other unpredictable events that can affect traditional meat production.

For now, Rees Clayton said, federal regulators have approved only two U.S. companies to produce and sell cultivated meat, and neither company has brought a product to the market yet.

Rees Clayton failed to convince legislators to consider what she described as a “minor” amendment. It would add terms such as “cell-cultivated” or “cultivated” to the bill’s definition of lab-grown meat, which she said would better align the legislation with industry standards.

Some other states, including Florida and Alabama, have banned lab-grown meat. Nebraska is considering a ban.