Meat money going to the wrong effort

To the editor:

I was disappointed to learn the United States Department of Agriculture is spending $110 million to expand slaughterhouse capacity across the country. Instead, this money should be put toward cultivated-meat research.

For those who don’t know, cultivated meat is grown from animal cells, without slaughter. Such funding would help prepare the new protein for mass production.

Cultivated meat has the potential to greatly reduce our greenhouse-gas emissions, as livestock farming is one of the leading causes of climate change.

Similarly, since animals are removed from the process, the new protein would significantly limit the risk of zoonotic pandemics.

Of course, it would dramatically lessen the suffering we inflict on our fellow creatures as well.

Jon Hochschartner