Slaughter-free meat may soon be available in Indian markets: Report

Representative image: Wikimedia Commons/Kajori.p

The central government has just approved a grant worth Rs 4.5 crore to two premier research institutes based out of Hyderabad to work on developing a technology that grows animal cells in controlled laboratory set-ups. Basically, this will help produce slaughter-free meat.

The project, funded by the Department of Biotechnology, will span a year and a half and will try developing ways to use tissue samples of sheep to make stem cells that could produce mutton.

Moneycontrol could not independently verify the story.

The National Research Centre on Meat (NRCM) - set up by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) - and the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), which comes under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), will jointly carry out the research, reported The Hindu.

The development was announced late last week by CCMB director Rakesh Mishra. He said the funds received were among the highest doled out by any government in the history of research on cell-based meat.

Mishra said: “This funding has been given to CCMB to develop technology to take laboratory cell culture process to cell-based meat production which can be scalable. It is one of the major initiatives by any government body across the globe and encourages other agencies and industry to take part.”

Advocates of cell-based meat say it is a healthier alternative for the planet since it cuts down land and water usage, and is also good for consumption. Also, it has the potential to do away with modern factory-farming, salmonella and e-coli infections. At the same time, it addresses the growing concern for animal cruelty and antibiotic-laden meat.

Varun Deshpande, Managing Director - Good Food Institute, India, said the aim of the research would be to feed 10 billion people across the world by 2050. The animal protein thus available will not compromise on taste. More importantly, it will be affordable, Deshpande claimed. Good Food Institute has partnered with the Maharashtra government and a Mumbai-based institute to set up a Centre dedicated to Cellular Agriculture. By 2020, it hopes to offer cell-based meat samples.