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BY GEORGINA GUSTIN

In vitro meat. Test tube meat. Lab meat.

Regardless of its handle, artificial meat has some real meat farmers pretty fired up.

This week a researcher paid by the animal rights group PETA hung his lab coat in the University of Missouri's Division of Animal Sciences -- bringing his goal of creating cultured meat right to the middle of Midwestern hog land.

Nicholas Genovese, a researcher formerly at the Medical University of South Carolina, began his stint as a visiting scholar Wednesday, working in the lab of R. Michael Roberts, a pre-eminent reproductive biologist who works with stem cells and livestock.

But Genovese's presence has triggered a flare of alarm from Missouri hog producers who aren't happy that a PETA-financed researcher is now working at the state's flagship public university.

Artificial or cultured meat, not to be confused with imitation meat, is made in a lab from animal tissue -- and, in theory, could mean fewer actual animals on the farm one day. Researchers have successfully created meat, but not in a commercially viable way --yet.

"Let me tell you," said Blake Hurst, president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, "my farmer friends are exercised."

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