My own feeling is that reducing the amount of farming would also reduce the carbon footprint of farming. I love meat as much as the next person, but widespread meat consumption is not particularly ecological.
Lab-grown meat is probably the quickest route forward that maintains normalcy whilst solving the sustainability issues.
On the other hand, it is pretty certain that it is possible to produce high-quality animal proteins, like whey protein or egg white protein, in a sustainable way and at a lower cost, by cultures of genetically-modified fungi, which can be fed with cheap carbohydrates from cereals and with minerals, unlike the animal cells which require a very complex food.
The company that has achieved the low price quoted above has done this by replacing the animal food that was given previously by everybody to the cultivated cells (e.g. serum and albumin) with some mixture of substances extracted from various vegetables.
It is unlikely that it will be ever possible for the food given to cell cultures to be cheaper than the food given to real chicken. The only chance for lab-grown meat to become cheaper than real chicken meat is given by the fact that only the edible part of a chicken is grown, i.e. the equivalent of a breast or thigh, instead of growing the entire chicken body with many parts that have a low value.
While fungal cultures would be much more efficient than any lab-grown meat, they could provide only protein powder, which could enrich in proteins any vegetable food, but from which it would not be easy to make something resembling a steak.
If it's grown in a lab and tastes like meat, it's lab-grown meat. It doesn't matter if it uses animal cells.
You may not even be able to call it "meat", it still makes no difference. Some people will be extremely offended by the difference, but if you don't force anything most people are always ok with anything that tastes good.
The people like me, willing to eat lab grown meat, already are willing to pay more for more carefully grown meat and just eat less meat in general. We are the minority.
The fake meat industry is currently failing. Probably because their products were hyper processed trash that was usually less palatable than a comparable meat replacement, not healthier in general, and somehow STILL more expensive than real meat.
I agree with you and vouch that I am one such person. I am already in the middle of changing my lifestyle so that in some worst case scenarios I could raise my own hogs and cattle and slaughter them myself. Will be teaching my children and grandchildren to do this.
"Lab grown meat" disgusts me, and though it's hard to say exactly how I'd behave were my ribs visible, right now I think I'd prefer to starve than eat it. Those who say they would eat it seem bizarre to me, and when I'm generous I just assume they haven't given it much thought.
I do not feel as if this is tied to identity politics, I assume that there must be people like me both on the left and right, but also that there are people who would be enthusiastic about it on both sides as well. If I'm mistaken in that regard, then I must say that I have zero insight as to why that would be the case.
Steaks are likely not going away any time soon, but they are not a staple food.
Also, chances are the livestock partly is fed from imported food, for example in winter.
I saw corn fields when I visited England recently. Don't know the extent.