to prevent cell-cultured meat companies from marketing their products as beef or meat. Five months later, when FDA hosted its own meeting about the technology, the North American Meat Institute (NAMI), which represents meatpackers, groused that it was the wrong agency to regulate the product.

The agriculture department’s involvement was surely a relief to the meat industry, which has been trying to get USDA in the ring for the better part of a year. In February, the U.S. Cattlemen’s Association (USCA), an organization representing ranchers, petitioned the agency

“I’m both surprised and disappointed that no one from the United States Department of Agriculture is on any of today’s panels. This meeting should have been held jointly by USDA and FDA,” said Tiffany Lee, NAMI’s director of regulatory and scientific affairs, at the time. “Let me be clear about the Meat Institute’s position. Primary jurisdiction over the regulation of cell-cultured meat products rests with the United States Department of Agriculture.”

(We’ll get to why they’re so hot for USDA to be involved in a second.)

The big news was made early on this week, when USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue and FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb announced that the two agencies intend to jointly regulate these new products—with each agency having particular areas of jurisdiction—in what could be a first-of-its-kind arrangement. Until now, the division of labor in food regulation and safety has gone like this: USDA regulates meat, poultry, some egg products, and catfish. FDA regulates practically everything else. That’s made for an uneasy alliance.