China's New Cloning Centre to Produce Thousands of Cattle Embryos a Year

Chinese scientists have signed a deal to establish the largest commercial animal cloning centre in the world, in the northern port city of Tianjin.

China's national press agency, Xinhua, reported that the facility will clone animals including beef cattle, sniffer and pet dogs and racehorses.

It will produce 100,000 cattle embryos a year initially, eventually increasing to 1 million, said Xu Xiaochun, board chairman of Boyalife Group, one of the companies involved in the venture.

Chinese farmers are struggling to produce enough beef cattle to meet market demand, Mr Xu said.

Prior to this new development, cloning in China had been limited to scientific research, which had been taking place in sheep, cattle and pigs since 2000 - read more here.

This week, we also featured a report by Sarah Mikesell about the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB), which recently met in Amsterdam.

Larry Stewart, senior director, global supply chain for beef, pork and fish with McDonald’s and a member of the GRSB executive committee, attended the meeting and shared his perspective of where the GRSB is headed.

“The regional roundtables have really pulled together and are working to shape indicators that stem from the GRSB Principles and Criteria which were approved last November at the GRSB’s meeting in São Paulo, Brazil,” Mr Stewart said.

“The indicators are about making sustainable beef production practices relevant for regional production systems and ecosystems.” – Read more.