Cloning offers livestock breeders many advantages, at a glimpse being insurance, genetic advancement, and extended genetic influence. Through the cloning process, progressive producers can duplicate the animals that contribute the most value in their herds and advance their goals to produce more efficient and healthier animals, leading to better quality food products (Livestock Cloning 1). The genetic influence of these animals can help create a more consistent supply of tender and flavorful beef, for example. Cloning grants breeders the opportunity to replace an animal lost early in its career, due to death or injury, perhaps even before the value of its genetics were fully discovered (Livestock Cloning 2). As stated best in a pamphlet by Trans Ova Genetics, genetic preservation followed by cloning is an excellent form of insurance for any species. It allows the animals that were irreplaceable to be replaceable (Livestock Cloning 5). The main type of cloning that Trans Ova deals with is nuclear transfer, where cells from a tissue biopsy of the genetic donor are combined with an enucleated egg, an egg that has had its nucleus removed (Genetic Preservation 5). Another form of cloning is embryo splitting, which involves bisecting a multicellular embryo at an early stage of development in order to generate twins (Cloning UCD 1).
Some assume that cloning is like a factory that prints exact copies of the original animal, who act like robotic lifeless versions of it. This assumption is extremely inaccurate, and this fear takes too much inspiration from a sci-fi movie! Cloning doesn’t necessarily mean that the clone will be exactly like the original, in looks and personality. In fact, many clones have slight variations in coat color and markings (Myths 7). It all depends on how the genes are expressed, or how the information in that gene is seen in the actual animal (Myths 8). This works the same as identical twins: they will look strikingly similar, but they will not be 100% identical. As for personality, temperament is only partially determined by an animal’s genes. Temperament is mostly influenced by the way the animal was raised. Events or memories that have made an effect on an organism’s temperament or demeanor are referred to as environmental influences. If you wanted to clone your pet because of how calm and gentle they are, the clone would have to have the exact same life experiences as your original pet in order to have the same temperament (Myths 10).
The FDA has ruled that eating clones and their offspring is completely safe (Myths 28), seeing as they are essentially just a twin of a living animal, and not some lab-created monstrosity. Seeing as cloning is an expensive procedure, however, it is probable that a product from a cloned animal will never end up on your plate, as they will most likely be used as breeding stock (Myths 28). It is likely that you may consume a product from the cloned animals’ progeny, or offspring. One thing you may not realize, though, is that you’ve been eating clones for some time now. How so, you might ask? We eat fruit from plant clones all the time, in the form of bananas and grafted fruits (Myths 4). To breed a banana using seeds takes almost 30 years. In order to speed up the process and feed the world, most bananas, potatoes, apples, grapes, pears, and peaches are from clones (Myths 4). This is called vegetative propagation. While you may not have realized it, propagation is technically a form of cloning.
While some may argue that cloning and meddling with the creation of life is considered “playing God,” the truth of the matter is that we’ve been using technology that would constitute as “playing God” for ages now, and to use that as an argument against cloning is inopportune. Cloning is simply another form of assisted reproduction technology, or ART, that can be used by progressive livestock breeders (Livestock Cloning 6). Other ART includes artificial insemination, embryo transfer, in vitro fertilization, and sexed semen. Trans Ova Genetics has been working closely with cattle breeders on advanced reproductive technologies for nearly 40 years. That involves more than 16 years of experience with cloning technologies and encompasses thousands of cloned animals (Genetic Preservation 6).