The Soil Association (UK) has hit out at the cloning of farm animals which it has described as “cruel” and a “serious threat to genetic diversity within agriculture”. The organic charity was responding to reports in the UK and US media that milk from a cloned cow’s offspring is currently on sale in Britain without a legally required authorisation from the Food Standards Association.

Reports in the New York Times and BBC quote an unnamed British dairy farmer who claims he has been supplying milk from cows produced from imported cloned embryos. Commenting on the revelations, Emma Hockridge, head of policy at the Soil Association, said “There are a number of problems associated with cloning farm animals — perhaps the most immediate being the serious animal welfare issues associated with the cloning process. Cloning involves applying invasive and cruel techniques on the surrogate mothers that are used for producing the clones and, as the process is currently very inefficient, many deformed animals are created and die for each surviving healthy clone.

“There are a number of other concerns: about the safety of meat and dairy products from cloned animals; that the use of clones will reduce genetic diversity within agriculture; that the use of clones will promote the development and spread of animal diseases; as well as concerns about the ethics of cloning. The use of cloned farm animals fundamentally undermines the freedom of choice of farmers and consumers to avoid these animals and products, because of a lack of transparency in their regulation and traceability” she continued.

“At a time when Government is expressing a desire to move towards ‘honest labelling’ of food, so consumers understand what they are purchasing and know its provenance, cloned animals entering the food chain must be tackled with the utmost urgency. Just three weeks ago, the European parliament voted for an immediate moratorium on clones in the food chain until legislation expressly prohibiting foods from cloned animals and their descendants can be put in place.”

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