Milking the technology

Agricultural cloners hope to make money out of cloning, but how?

Sale of meat from slaughtered, cloned animals to the consumer.

The most unlikely method, given that it takes tens of thousands of dollars to clone a single animal. British scientists note it would be virtually impossible even in the lab to tell the difference between cloned and non-cloned meat.

Sale of milk from cloned animals to the consumer.

Reasonably likely. Clones of prize milkers could help pay back cost of acquiring them if their milk could be sold.

Sale of cloned prize animals from breeder to farmer.

Quite likely, once technology has advanced further. A breeder in US might have a prize milk cow; he would arrange for cloning company to make multiple cloned embryos. Embryos could be sent to, for instance, a farmer in Britain for implantation in a surrogate mother cow.

Sale of sperm from cloned stud animals.

Most likely near-term commercial use. British breeders have expressed interest in sperm of the clone of legendary Canadian Holstein, Hanoverhill Starbuck. This would eventually lead to...

Sale to consumer of milk or meat from animals sired by a clone.

Within a few animal generations, debate could become messy. How would the World Trade Organisation mediate between Europe and the US if, for instance, France refused to allow the import of beef from a cow with a clone for a great-grandfather?