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Cara Augustenborg: Ignoring the reality of lab-grown meat could be a recipe for economic disaster

Ireland should follow the Netherlands, India and China by engaging proactively with this nascent market

Illustration of what a synthetic beef production line might look like: such products are expected to reach high-end American restaurants this summer, and enter mass production in less than a decade. Picture: Getty

In his 1931 essay Fifty Years Hence, Winston Churchill predicted that by the 1980s we would “escape the absurdity of growing a whole chicken in order to eat the breast or wing, by growing these parts separately under a suitable medium”.

Actually, it took nearly 70 years for Churchill’s prediction to approach reality. In 2000, scientists in New York developed a fish fillet from goldfish cells, and Nasa scientists began to grow meat from turkey ...