Farmer Considers Selling Cloned Dairy Cows for Hamburger Meat

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration says that it’s probably safe to consume meat and milk from cloned cows, but pressure from the food industry has kept the agency from officially approving it. Meat and milk marketers fear that if consumers know the products came from cloned animals, they won’t accept it. Four years ago, the FDA announced that they were performing a "risk assessment" on products made from cloned animals to determine whether or not they were safe for consumers. The agency asked farmers and cloning companies to hold off on using clones or their offspring for food while officials completed their assessment.

The timing of the FDA’s voluntary ban was particularly bad for dairy farmer Greg Wiles, whose father was running a commercial dairy farm when Wiles came home in 1996 from the University of Maryland with some innovative new ideas for breeding champion dairy cows. His ideas quickly took shape with Zita, a Holstein dairy cow that won top ratings for the superior butterfat content of her milk and her high level of milk production. Zita and her calves attracted visitors and customers from all over the world, but as she grew older she was unable to have any more calves.

A cloning company came to Wiles and suggested to him that he should have Zita cloned in order to produce other champion dairy cows just like her. Wiles was enthusiastic about the idea, and forked out the money for the cloning. In 2001, two clones, Genesis and Cyagra, were born. Unfortunately, that was around the same time that the FDA asked farmers and cloning companies to voluntarily refrain from using clones or their offspring for food.

For nearly four years, Wiles has had to pour the milk from Genesis and Cyagra down the drain, while continuing to feed and care for them. He has been able to sell milk from other cows on his farm, but he has not sold an embryo or bull in the last three years. One customer told him that he would not invest money in animals from Wiles’ herd because they were mingling with the clones on the farm. Genesis has had six offspring, all sired by a cloned bull in Canada, but Wiles has not been able to sell them. "Business basically completely dried up," he said.

There are at least 150 livestock clones living in the United States. A dairy cow makes about 128 glasses of milk every day, and cows that stop producing milk can be sold to ground beef plants, where a single cow can be converted into more than 3,000 hamburger patties. But because of the FDA’s voluntary ban, all of those cloned animals are merely taking up money and resources without contributing to profits for their owners, such as Wiles.

Consumer advocates say the government never should have let cloned animals live on commercial farms in the first place, and then there would be no quandary for consumers. Since the federal government has no way to block farmers from selling milk or meat from cloned animals, there is no way for consumers to be sure the food supply is free of them. Surveys have shown that people are wary of consuming food from cloned animals.

"Who knows whether people adhere to the voluntary moratorium or not?" says Joseph Mendelson of the Center for Food Safety, an environmental and public health group. "That's the problem with a system that relies on the good graces of everyone."

Wiles took over the dairy farm operations from his father three years ago. But because of the financial burdens caused by caring for the cloned cows and the lack of customers concerned about the clones, Wiles hasn’t been able to pay the rent in several months and his father, Charles, is seeking to evict him. Charles says the cows should be euthanized and buried, not sold for meat, in compliance with the FDA’s voluntary ban. "If you can’t milk them and you can’t eat them, and you can’t sell them, then what are you supposed to do with them?" he asks. "Keep them until they die of old age? This is the dairy industry, not a hobby. It’s got to be a moneymaking, profitable enterprise."

But the younger Wiles doesn’t want the animals killed, and says that he may be forced to sell his cloned cows for hamburger, despite the FDA’s request. "If I don’t find a new home for these animals for them to live out their lifetime, I could be forced by a court of law to introduce them into the food chain," Wiles said. "I have figured up hundreds of thousands of dollars of losses at a minimum because of these clones. If I can’t recoup my investment, and they’re no longer productive at all, their only choice is that they go into the food supply."