The EU Parliament voted last week to ban the cloning of animals. Furthermore, imports of descendents of cloned animals, and all clone-derived products have been banned from the European market. This decision stands the EU apart from many other countries: farmers in the United States, South America and China commonly use cloning as part of farm breeding programmes. If you can have ten cows producing high yielding dairy cow calves rather than one, it sounds like a useful boost in productivity. If you own an ultra-efficient meat producing pig, why not use technology to create an exact genetic replica? Isn't it like reproduction without the uncertainty of mixing male and female genes in the usual uncontrolled natural way?

The science behind cloning

The most commonly used technique for cloning is still somatic cell nucleus transfer (SCNT), the technique that was used to create Dolly the sheep back in 1996. A genetic copy of an animal is produced by replacing the nucleus of an unfertilised ovum (egg cell) with the nucleus of a body (somatic) cell from an adult animal. The resulting clone embryo is then transferred to a surrogate dam where it develops until birth. Cloning replicates the exact genetic make-up of the animal from which the cell was taken, producing a direct replica as a newborn animal. If you have a top class adult animal, cloning allows you to have a junior version of exactly the same animal.

Injaz, claimed to be the world’s first cloned camel, was born on April 8 2009. Credit: AFP / Getty Images

So why has the EU just voted to ban cloning, and all clone-related products?

The answer is simple and refreshing: European law makers are concerned about the severe impact of cloning on animal welfare. The low efficiency rates of cloning (6% to 15% for cattle and 6% for pigs) means that multiple embryo clones need to be implanted into several dams to obtain one cloned animal. Additionally, clone abnormalities and the abnormally large size of newborn animals leads to a high incidence of difficult births and neonatal deaths. European consumers are clear that this is unacceptable, with 67% agreeing that there are ethical concerns for rejecting animal cloning.

Are European consumers traditionalist Luddites?

This is not an ill-informed Luddite fear of the unknown: the European Food Safety Authority is clear that no differences exist in terms of food safety for meat and milk of clones and their progeny compared with those from conventionally bred animals.

The European sentiment is based on the scientific fact that currently, cloning causes significantly more animal suffering than conventional breeding.

The truth: Europe cares more about animals than other trading blocks

So why is cloning allowed in other parts of the world? It's for the same reason that extreme factory farming is common in the same countries: either consumers don't care about animal welfare as much as Europeans, or more likely perhaps, consumers' concerns are disregarded in favour of a profit oriented agribusiness sector.

A final question: if the UK leaves the EU, what decision would this country make on cloning?