I am sure many of you have wondered why the EU commission meakly accepts cloning and refuses to label meat from clones or clone offspring, despite the overwhelming majority of citizens being very much opposed to this. A paper by the European commission that was obtained by Testbiotech and published by Foodwatch reveals the arguments:
1. Its not deemed possible to actually trace the meat of cloned animals or their offspring – which is already on the market in Europe – and regulations for labelling would practically mean an import stop for all bovine meat. (So far only beef deriving from clones and their offspring is available, while pork from cloned pigs apparently has not yet hit the market.)
2. The EU is afraid of “carousel sanctions” under the WTO that would impact both its imports of livestock products to the tune of € 2 billion as well as its exports to the tune of € 6.9 billion.
Its almost hilarious. So much effort and costs have been invested in obtaining traceability of all livestock products in the EU, yet cloning is not considered a criterion. And the EU is afraid of risking the ire of the WTO fearing that it will lose the market for its excess meat – produced to 78% by using protein feed that is imported from the Amercias where the Amazon forests are being cut down for this purpose. …. Ah, that means economic sustainability for the few grain traders that dominate the global market!
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