Animal Agriculture and the Anthropocene

Before situating CM within the logic of productivist agriculture, it is important to understand the unique nature of agriculture within capitalist production. Accomplishing this requires that we delve into the many ways that living organisms involved in agriculture become gradually transformed as “living factories” (Fish, 2013) as both forms of capital and modes of production. This evolution is premised on an understanding of the role of technology, not simply as a set of biological, chemical, and mechanical tools and knowledges that transform natural processes and living beings into commodities, but, specifically, as providing the ground for the ontological alteration of nature in the image of capital (Fish, 2013, p. 13). Cellular agriculture stands as the culmination or pinnacle of industrial capitalism, epitomizing the intentional displacement and replacement of animals into post-animals. This process signifies not merely a substitution of traditional livestock but an ontological shift, where the essence of animality is redefined within the confines of technoscientific production. Even though it uses all of the techniques of genetic engineering and biotechnology, CM is a more advanced state of control over living processes, as it encompasses the processes of life creation not simply at the genetic level. Cellular agriculture aims to synthesize artificial flesh within the controlled environment of the laboratory or bioreactor, which simulates a partially realized vision of nature.