WILLIAMSPORT, Md. – For nearly four years, dairy farmer Greg Wiles has poured milk from his cloned cows down the drain in compliance with a voluntary ban on food from cloned livestock.
Now in financial straits, Wiles says he may be forced to sell his cloned cows as hamburger.
The Food and Drug Administration says that’s probably safe, but pressure from the food industry has kept the agency from actually approving it. Milk and meat marketers worry that consumers won’t accept food from cloned animals.
Wiles says he can’t wait any longer. Facing eviction in a bitter family business dispute, he says he may be forced to violate the ban and sell his two clones as hamburger meat.
“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.
The failure, so far, to approve cloned animals for the food supply raises a quandary for consumers. The federal government has no way to stop a farmer such as Wiles from selling meat or milk from cloned animals. That means no one can be sure the food supply is free of them.
The dairy industry says there are at least 150 livestock clones in the United States. A single dairy cow makes about 128 glasses of milk every day. Cows that stop producing milk are often sold to ground beef plants, where a single dairy cow can be turned into more than 3,000 hamburger patties.
Wiles says he doesn’t want the animals killed and has offered one to the government for research. The government has declined.
Wiles has a few weeks more to try to find a solution; a judge delayed the eviction proceeding on Dec. 13.
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