PETA's fake-chicken stunt

FAKE CHICKEN could now be worth $1 million.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals gas announced that it will present a $1 million prize to anyone who can demonstrate a major breakthrough in the technology of lab-grown meat: Contestants have until 2012 to produce a commercially viable in-vitro chicken substitute that tastes like the real thing.

The X-Poultry Prize has already generated high expectations. In its press release, PETA suggests that in-vitro farms will spare the "more than 40 billion chickens, fish, pigs, and cows" killed every year in the United States. I'm not so bullish. We might be eating test-tube McNuggets at some point in the next 20 years, but it's hard to see how PETA's $1 million will help get us there.

Think about what a science prize is supposed to do. A cash incentive encourages research that doesn't have a clear financial reward. A drug company might not have much reason to invest in treating a disease of the developing world, like malaria. A patent on a malaria vaccine would be a great boon, but wouldn't be worth much money since the people who need it most can't afford to pay.

Science prizes can also encourage breakthroughs that don't have an immediate commercial application. The Orteig Prize offered $25,000 to anyone who could fly nonstop from New York to Paris. The commercial aviation industry would eventually be worth hundreds of billions, but when Charles Lindbergh made the trip in 1927, the prize itself was the payoff.

So what's wrong with the PETA prize? You need to sell your product in order to win. According to the contest guidelines, the meat must be available in stores to qualify for the cash. Fake-chicken entrepreneurs have to demonstrate a "commercial sales minimum" at a "comparable market price." In plain English, they need to move 2,000 pounds of the stuff at supermarkets and chain restaurants spread out across 10 states during a period of three months. And the Franken-meat can't cost more than regular chicken.

That means PETA won't be content with any intermediate (and not immediately profitable) breakthrough, like the development of lab-grown chicken that tastes as good as the natural stuff. Instead, PETA will hold the purse until a "commercially viable" product hits the market.

You can't win unless you're already in position to make a profit. A prize like that doesn't provide much incentive for innovation. It's more like a small bonus.

PETA's commercial requirements also saddle researchers with demands that have nothing to do with science. Any company that wants to sell artificial chicken will probably face a lengthy government review. (It took five years for the FDA to approve cloned meat.)

SAY YOU invented a perfect chicken substitute tomorrow, so delicious and inexpensive that it could go into production right away. Even then, you still might not make the PETA deadline for supermarket sales.

The contests sponsored by the X Prize Foundation have no such requirements. To win the Google Lunar X Prize, engineers must put a robot on the moon. They don't need to put it on sale in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog.

The Progressive Automotive X Prize, announced last month, will go to the developers of a car that gets more than 100 mpg. They must also demonstrate that their car is "production capable," and they need to "articulate clear and viable business cases for bringing their vehicles to market." But they don't have to start selling them at the local dealership.

The PETA prize may turn out to be a minor boon for meat research, if it generates publicity. (Private investors will take notice.) But it's hard to imagine that the $1 million will provide much incentive. As a science prize, it feels a bit fake. *

Daniel Engber is an editor at Slate (slate.com), where this first appeared. E-mail danengber@yahoo.com.