Posted December 19, 2013
The European Commission recently proposed a draft rule
banning the cloning of farm animals, imports of cloned livestock, and the sale
of food from cloned animals, according to a Bloomberg article available here.
The European Commission
is the executive body of the European Union and is responsible for proposing
legislation, among other things. The
proposal “seeks to address worries about animal welfare and other ethical
concerns related to use of cloning.”
The proposal is “not likely” to have a high impact on
trade.
Animal clones are “copies created by transferring
genetic material into an egg which is then implanted in a surrogate mother, who
will carry and give birth to the clone.”
The success rate for the procedure is “6 percent to 15 percent for
cattle and 6 percent for pigs,” according to a report by the
European Food Safety Authority.
The import and sale of offspring of cloned animals
would be permitted under the proposal, according to a Reuters article available
here. This distinction is due to welfare concerns
surrounding animal cloning, not their conventionally bred offspring.
The draft rule, however, may find opposition from
lawmakers in the European Parliament, “which previously said it would only
accept the sale of food from the young of clones if all such products were
clearly labeled.”
The Commission said it needed more time to determine
whether labeling was feasible.
For more information on biotechnology and food
labeling, please visit the National Agricultural Law Center’s website here
and here.
