The Italian government has approved a bill banning the use of lab-grown meat in food and animal feed in an effort to protect the country's agricultural products.

The draft bill, which still has to be approved by the cabinet meeting, would ban Italian food producers from producing food or feed grown from animal cells or tissues. For now, it would not apply to products made or sold elsewhere in the EU, Turkey or the European Economic Area.

The Italian Ministry of Agriculture argues that laboratory products endanger the traditional link between agriculture and food and are seen as harmful technological innovations.

Violations would be punishable by fines of up to 60,000 euros, factories would be shut down and producers could lose their right to public funds for up to three years, the draft said.

This is not the only move by the government to stop unconventional foods from reaching Italian consumers' tables. It comes as the government is in the process of introducing a series of decrees, including information containing insect meal or insect extract, into food labels.

The Italian agriculture and animal Husbandry association Coldiretti praised the government's move against synthetic food and said the ban was necessary, but it was strongly criticised by animal rights group LAV. The group says lab meat derived from living animal cells is a good alternative to intensive farming and slaughter, and that the bill is "an ideological, anti-science crusade against progress”.