Surprises Await Ag Economy and Italy Bans Cultivated Meat

**Geopolitical factors, elections, and other surprises await the agricultural economy in 2024.

Possibilities in the Farm Journal and Purdue University’s December Economists’ Monthly Monitor include China falling into a big recession, a second Farm Bill extension, and inflation supporting managed money returning to commodities.

Record beef imports wouldn’t be a surprise either, as well as a national corn yield bigger than 190 bushels per acre.

**China has been the world’s largest meat importer since 2019, but despite recent reductions in imported meat volumes, the country remains in the top spot.

In 2022, China imported 43% more than Japan, the second-largest meat importer in the world, followed by Mexico.

Issues such as disease, tougher laws addressing environmental issues, and an exodus of small-scale farmers have constrained China’s meat supply, boosting domestic prices and incentives to import.

**Italy is the first country to ban cultivated meat, the kind grown in laboratory bioreactors from stem cells.

Under a new law put into effect in November, lab-grown meat cannot be produced or marketed in Italy.

Singapore is the only country where people are currently eating cell-based meat.

The USDA and FDA have approved two kinds of cell-based chicken for human consumption.

The BBC says the top issue in most countries is food safety.