China’s Boyalife biotechnology company is currently in the middle of building the world’s largest animal cloning factory in Tianjin, China, in collaboration with South Korea’s biotechnology company Sooam, in which it intends to clone up to one million cattle each year to help meet the increasing demand for such animals.
With beef demand in China continuing to increase, keeping the numbers of cattle up in the country is continuing to become difficult. The cloning company’s $31 million, 15,000 square meter facility will help prevent the demand from outgrowing China’s cattle supply, and as a result, beef will not be as scarce.
There is, of course, a ton of controversy over whether such a facility is morally proper, or for that matter, capable of producing beef safe for human consumption. The United States Food and Drug Administration has deemed cloned meat as ‘safe to eat’ for years, although it’s still a rather touchy and taboo subject for many.
The facility should be up and running by as early as 2016, where it will begin operations of cloning animals with an initial capacity of approximately 100,000 embryos each year. In addition to cattle, other animals will also be cloned, but not necessarily for eating – for example, police sniffer dogs for official police use, as well as race horses for sporting events.
Since certain animals have interesting qualities, such as incredible obedience, speed, or use for sustaining the human population as it continues to multiply, it is on this facility’s intention list to keep those qualities going, even when the original has served its time and is still needed.
Without a doubt, this is the world’s largest animal-cloning facility ever built, and has the goal of breaking animal cloning records. Within its walls, it will contain some of the world’s most advanced cloning technology.
Those behind the project are excited to get this show on the road and see their facility not only make them money, but break records and change the world.
Source: The Guardian