New Chinese “Clone Factory” Will Produce 1 Million Cows Per Year

When scientists first managed to make a clone of Dolly the sheep, it sparked a global debate about the ethics and potential of cloning technology. While that debate raged however, the research in this field continued unabated. Now, less than 20 years after science birthed the first perfect duplicate of a mammal, an entire cloning factory is being built in Tianjin, China.

The roughly $31 million facility is being constructed by the biotechnology firm known as BoyaLife, and is expected to open sometime next year. The company will initially produce 100,000 calf embryos a year, but are expecting to expand that to 1,000,000 in the near future. In addition to cows, the facility will also produce racehorses, sniffing dogs, and even recreate family pets that have died. The company is hoping to tap into China’s ever-growing demand for beef, which has caused prices to triple in recent years.

The facility is of course, not without controversy. The cloning of animals was banned in the EU last September due to animal welfare concerns. The technology simply isn’t advanced enough to raise the animals consistently and ethically. According Renate Sommer, a member of the EU parliament “The mortality rate remains equally high. Many of the animals which are born alive die in the first few weeks, and they die painfully. Should we allow that?”

Of course, the Chairman for BoyaLife feels differently about the issue. “Was this ban based on scientific rationale or ethical rationale or political agenda?” he asked the Telegraph before adding “Legislation is always behind science. But in the area of cloning, I think we are going the wrong way and starting to kill the technology.”