Changes to the cattle passport rules were urged yesterday to make the offspring of cloned cattle more readily identifiable to farmers and meat processors.The National Beef Association (NBA) made the demand for clearer information on the passports that accompany all cattle from birth to slaughter.
It was responding to the scare involving three Holstein bulls born from the embryos of a cloned cow in the US being slaughtered in the UK.
Beef from two of them was sold and eaten by the public. Meat from the third, which was slaughtered on Tuesday last week, has been destroyed.
The NBA has the support of Scottish Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead, who discussed the situation yesterday with UK Environment Minister Caroline Spelman. Mr Lochhead told her the Scottish Government wanted tighter controls on the descendants of all cloned cattle and had asked her to clarify several issues with the European Commission on its rules for so-called novel foods. These regulate cloned livestock.
He has also asked the UK Government to find out if any more embryos from cloned livestock have entered the UK.
Mr Lochhead has further called on the Food Standards Agency to better communicate the rules on clones and their offspring to the farming community.
Scientists insist meat and milk from the offspring of clones carries no risk to human health, but Europe only allows the products to enter the food chain if it is licensed.
NBA director Kim Haywood said adding CL to the name of the animal on both the passport and any pedigree livestock document produced by cattle breed societies would easily identify cloned stock and their offspring, and prevent their meat and milk being sold. She added: “The integrity of the UK beef industry depends on this. The beef sector has contracted with retailers and consumers to deliver a lawful product that meets all EU and UK food-law requirements and it backtracks on this at its peril.”
Nairn dairy farmers Callum Innes and his son, Steven, of Drumduan, Auldearn, used two of the bulls - Dundee Perfect and Dundee Paratrooper - in their herd of 1,400 Holstein cows before they sent them for slaughter at Highland Meats’ plant at Saltcoats, Ayrshire. Paratrooper was killed last July and his meat was likely used in burgers and mince, while the beef from Perfect is to be destroyed.
The two bulls sired many calves, of which 96 yearling heifers remain legitimately on the farm. The Inneses will be unable to sell the animals’ meat and milk, however, unless they seek a licence from the Food Standards Agency. All the bulls’ male calves were killed soon after birth.
NFU Scotland president Jim McLaren agreed information should be included on passports and the national cattle database to identify all stock descended from clones.
Mr McLaren also pointed to a difference in EU rules. The UK excludes from the food chain the products of the offspring of cloned cattle and all subsequent generations.
The same EU regulations in the Netherlands, however, allow the products from cloned animals to enter the food chain unlicensed after the third generation of breeding.
That, he said, could potentially allow the Innes family to export their cattle.
