LONDON (Reuters) - Cloning animals will not be useful on a large scale but the technology offers farmers an important tool to increase food production and protect animals from disease, scientists said on Tuesday.

Gloria, the first calf born to a cloned cow, Vitoria (L), is seen on a government farm outside Brasilia in this October 4, 2004 file photo. Cloning animals will not be useful on a large scale but the technology offers farmers an important tool to increase food production and protect animals from disease, scientists said on Tuesday. REUTERS/Jamil Bittar/Files

Critics contend that not enough is known about cloning to make it safe, while advocates say it can improve the quality of meat and dairy products.

Scientists at a briefing to address the intense debate said the technology was just the next step in artificial breeding and would only ever account for a small part of food production.

“Cloning is never going to be a large scale breeding system,” Simon Best, chairman of the UK-based BioIndustry Association, told reporters. “It has niche applications.”

Cloning involves taking cell nuclei from adults and fusing them into egg cells that are implanted into a surrogate mother.

Scientists said some uses could be to clone animals that are less resistant to certain diseases or to reproduce “elite” livestock that can churn out more milk or produce healthier offspring.

Keith Campbell, a researcher at the University of Nottingham, compared cloning to artificial insemination -- which the scientists noted was used to breed the cows that produce around 75 percent of milk.

Cloning can also help protect rare or dying breeds, said Campbell, who helped work on cloning the first adult mammal, Dolly the sheep.

“Cloning is just another technique we can add,” he said. “The ability to integrate cloning into the production line should be allowed to farmers.”

Scientists said approval of the controversial technology would not lead to a flood of cloned animals because the industry would need to weigh the costs and benefits of the technique.

Europe’s top food safety agency -- the European Food Safety Authority -- is currently mulling a decision on whether meat and milk from cloned animals are safe to eat and should be in supermarkets across the region.

Best predicted the process would take much longer than in the United States, where the Food and Drug Administration in December issued a draft ruling that said milk and meat from some cloned animals was safe to eat.

“This is not going to hit the supermarket shelves in Europe for a long time,” Best said. “It will take more time than in the United States and it will be more heavily regulated in Europe.”