Chapter 140: Cultured Meat (6)

[Proposed Amendment to the Meat Regulation Bill]

Campbell read the proposal that was published in the morning. This bill was the one that Congress was going to have a legislative hearing about.

Haha, geez.

Campbell handed the proposal to the chief of staff.

They are proposing an interesting bill.

Our Congress is talented at wasting its energy on nothing.

Do you think so, too? I feel exactly the same way. Sometimes they do a good job, but sometimes they just do pointless things. Restricting cultured meat for the sake of the livestock industry Isnt this the same thing as the medieval Church banning crossbows because they were too dangerous?

Thats actually a rumor.

Really?

All the Pope said was that Christians should not use ranged weapons.

I see.

Anyway, the congressmen probably dont actually think they can stop the technology from developing. But they are just going along because the livestock industry is fighting back against cultured meat pretty strongly.

Thats what is meaningless, Campbell pointed out. Ive reviewed this technology very closely with Doctor Ryu. And Ive reviewed it with James, the director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Frankly, we need this cultured meat technology and its effective. Replacing the traditional livestock industry with the cultured meat industry over ten years; I am going to make this the most important economic achievement of my term.

Then, shouldnt you convince the congressmen? If you look at the details of this bill, it seems like they consider cultured meat to be very dangerous and are trying to make heavy regulations And they are trying to adjust the price by increasing the taxes on cultured meat to protect the traditional livestock industry

The main points are that they are going to increase regulations on existing cultured meat so that it wont be easy to get market approval, and they are going to put a bunch of taxes on it and make it fifty times more expensive than regular meat?

Yes.

They will retreat on their own. I dont need to do anything.

How?

All the White House needs to do is to advertise the policy of changing farms to grow Kochia instead of livestock. I will let you know the timing. Can you tell the director of communications?

And when will this be?

When the first successful transformation story comes out. It will probably be Tekeyson Foods that Mr. Mckinney is running. Keep an eye on them. Congress said that they are having a public hearing about the bill, right?

Yes, and they are broadcasting it live.

Theres a high chance that Mr. Mckinney will be on the panel. Just watch if there is any lobbying from the traditional livestock industry to influence the panel selection process. Other than that, just leave it alone, said Campbell.

Doctor Ryu will take care of it. Everything is going according to his plan.

* * *

Woahhh

Rosaline exclaimed as she popped out of Young-Joons body. They could see a huge golden field stretching to the horizon from the window of the K-Cops car, which was driving down a dirt road.

Ive never seen anything like this before.

Me either.

Young-Joon said as he glanced out the window.

America really does have a big agricultural industry. I heard they use light airplanes to spray pesticides, but wow

Can I go out for a bit?

No. We have a long way to go.

Where are we going?

There are going to corn farms after we pass this field. We have to go there.

Why corn?

Its the main product of the American agriculture industry. And the yields were much lower last year. Do you know why?

Why?

There was an outbreak of a disease that infects corn called red mold.

Red mold?

Rosalines eyes shone.

Does it look like this?

Rosaline manipulated Young-Joons vision and a pathogen that looked like a clump of red dust appeared in front of his eyes.

How many people in the world do you think know what fungus looks like unless their eyes are a microscope? I dont know, but youre probably right.

As Young-Joon was replying to Rosaline, he realized something.

Where did you get this image? It wouldnt have been in my head.

I saw it myself. Its in that field over there.

Rosaline pointed to the window.

Oh I wasnt sure, but we came to the right place. I heard they didnt use red mold-resistant seeds and just used last years seeds. The mold is still spreading as I expected. But that field is a wheat field, not a corn field.

This fungus can infect wheat and rice as well. It seems like it has spread in the corn field as well. The spores are flying around in a pretty wide area.

Alright. We are going to make the outbreak of the damage into data. And we are going to use that on Gro Intelligence.

Youre saying that you are going to analyze how it will affect this years crops?

Yes. The program from Gro Intelligence is a crop forecasting program. You feed. It data as variables, and artificial intelligence predicts the results. The more diverse and better quality the data is, the better the results.

Young-Joon said to Rosaline.

But its pretty difficult to get data on things like how much a pathogen will spread. But lets include that data this time.

What if people ask how we got the data?

They probably wont be interested in how we got the data. They probably will have already gone wild over the results that Gro Intelligence predicted with the data.

Sir, Kim Chul-Kwon said to Young-Joon from the passengers seat.

Yes.

Should you be going around the United States right now? Shouldnt you return to Korea?

Why?

Korea has a livestock industry as well. It sounds like the atmosphere there isnt good either.

I would think so.

Kim Chul-Kwon handed his phone to Young-Joon. It was the free discussion board on the A-Bio website.

Ryu Young-Joon should stop doing pointless things and focus on developing new drugs.

No matter what it is, its better if its from nature. If you synthesize meat in a lab, what benefits would that have? The way for people to live is by eating meat from healthy pigs who grew in the wild.

Man, people in Hell-Joseon never change, do they?[1] You treated him like a national hero when he destroyed all kinds of incurable diseases, but youre treating him like a traitor as soon as he tries to touch your livelihood.

I think that you should have discussed this in-depth with the livestock industry and gotten approval before developing this technology.

Who do you think you people are for him to discuss developing new technology with you and get your approval? And if you did discuss it, would they have told him to do it? Youre talking nonsense.

Ryu Young-Joon, you axxhole. I didnt peg you for someone like that, but Im trembling in anger because of your betrayal right now. Are you happy that you drained the life out of poor farmers and fled to the U.S.?

Doctor Ryu, please ignore the ridiculous comments here and keep doing your research. I am rooting for you.

I am a vegetarian. I hope cultured meat comes out quickly.

Youve changed, Doctor Ryu Young-Joon. Wheres the person who studied pharmaceuticals for ordinary folk? Why are you making something that threatens the livelihoods of ordinary people?

This is right. Everyone changes when they get their hands on money. He just fled to the U.S. because cultured meat makes a lot of money. Axxhole should rot in hell.

When you say that this is right, youre talking about how its right for me to beat you up, right? How can you say he has changed?

This is for everyone saying that Ryu Young-Joon has changed. Ryu Young-Joon is the same person he was before. Why are people making a fuss about a scientist doing science?

The livestock industry is taking a hit right now, but a fatal food crisis will come in ten years if we dont do this now. Stop criticizing a person who is doing important work and shut your mouth.

But the government is making a policy about how to grow Kochia for a living and allocating eighty billion won to it, arent they? Whats the matter?

They are going to get compensation and the military is going to renovate the barn for them. The government is also going to buy the livestock, slaughter them and use it to feed soldiers. Arent they doing everything they can? Selfish bastards.

What a mess.

The discussion board exploded after the announcement of the cultured meat technology, and now there were over one hundred pages. Young-Joon had done a lot of different research before, but nothing had become this big of an issue.

Shouldnt you return and take care of the company and explain to people? Kim Chul-Won asked.

Its okay. It will calm down in Korea if we do it in the U.S.

Really?

There are over 2.2 million farms in America, totalling 3.7 million square miles. Thirty-seven percent of the U.S. land area is farms that grow and raise agricultural and livestock products. Its the largest in the world, Young-Joon said. Theres even a saying that the scariest weapon the United States has is not a nuclear submarine, but corn.

I see.

And our politics and economy are so heavily influenced by the U.S. that its basically a miniature version of America, right? If we stabilize cultured meat here, Korea will naturally follow. So will the world.

Sir, the young security guard who was driving the car turned to Young-Joon. The corn field is up ahead.

Please pull over in front of the farmers house, Young-Joon said while looking at his phone.

He was getting a call.

[Tekeyson CEO Mckinney]

Hello, this is Ryu Young-Joon.

Hello, Mr. Ryu.

Hello.

I called because there is something I would like to discuss with you.

What is it?

Red Meat bought some of our cultured meat.

They bought some?

Yes.

Is it already on the market?

Eat the Green got approval from the FDA for what we are making right now a while ago. The only thing that has changed is the production process from your idea. The problem isnt getting the product on the market. Of course, we dont know when the FDA will pick a fight with us and stop it, but we are packaging the meatballs to put on the market.

Red Meat is the large livestock company that is most strongly opposed to cultured meat, so they are probably going to try to argue that theres something wrong with the meatballs.

I think so as well. But I had no choice but to sell it to Red Meat because we were advertising it a lot before launching it. If we didnt, they would have thought that we werent selling it because we have something we are hiding.

Probably. You did good.

But I am worried about what they will quibble about. Since its a food product, there could be heavy metals or antibiotics in it, and that could be fatal to us.

Things like that cant be left in our cultured meat production process.

Thats right. Thats why Honestly, I have no idea what they are going to do.

Okay. Thank you for letting me know.

Young-Joon hung up the phone.

* * *

Three days before the public legislative hearing about the bill was held, a video was uploaded to the online Bellwood community board. It was a video that Tekeyson Foods employees took of the facility in the Bellwood region. The employees took a video to commemorate the occasion as they were so excited and proud to see the meat growing on their plates. Since Mckinney didnt have any privacy policies for that, they first posted that on their personal social media. Those videos quickly gained traction with tons of likes. Then, someone took that video and posted it to the online community board. After that, it spread to other regions as well.

It quickly spread among the farmers of the livestock industry.

Theres already a company that adapted to cultured meat.

Tekeyson is making cultured meat.

More unbelievable news came up at the same time. It was that all the workers who originally slaughtered livestock there before the change were still there.

How could the people who used to kill cows do biology? How can they grow meat on plates?

The workers from other facilities were shocked but soon understood the situation. It was because it wasnt as difficult as they thought.

Production was different from research and development. Research and development to increase the density of semiconductors required a high level of expertise and creativity, but the factory workers who produced them didnt need it. All they needed to do was simply follow protocols and perform set tasks among mechanized and automated equipment.

Tekeyson did not fire a single employee as they changed three farms and one facility into a cultured meat establishment.

𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

In the future, the company plans to convert other farms and facilities as cultured meat technology evolves while gradually reducing the number of livestock.

As soon as the first successful case came out, the White House began advertising their policy. Now, they had confidence in their success. They changed the policy letter, which had previously been sent to large livestock companies and farmers, to a more public format. They created a press release for the public. They held press briefings, ran advertisements, and explained the policy in detail through various newspapers and news outlets. In all of it, they used Tekeyson Foods successful adaptation as an example.

We have to push now, Campbell said. Please tell me the panels that have been selected for the public legislative hearing.

The opponents are Red Meat and commentators from conservative organizations.

What about on our side?

We have Mr. Mckinney from Tekeyson Foods, Diego from Eat the Green, and Tanya Manker, the CEO of Gro Intelligence.

What about Doctor Ryu?

I believe he has been contacted to attend and were still waiting to hear back.

1. Hell-Joseon is a negative term that people use to criticize Korea, calling it a living hell.