Animal cloning center to be built in Tianjin China

http://www.china.org.cn/china/Off_the_Wire/2015-11/23/content_37138601.htm

"It will produce 100,000 cattle embryos a year initially, eventually increasing to 1 million, said Xu Xiaochun, board chairman of Boyalife Group, based in Wuxi, east China's Jiangsu Province.

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

The center, the largest such facility worldwide, will also include a gene storage area and a museum, he added.

Scientists have cloned mice, cattle and other animals since the world's first cloned sheep, Dolly, was born on July 5, 1996 in Britain.

Since 2000, Chinese scientists have cloned sheep, cattle and pigs.

China's first commercial cloning company was established in September 2014 in the eastern Shandong Province with the birth of three pure-blooded Tibetan mastiff puppies. The firm is a joint venture between Boyalife and Sooam Biotech."

http://www.beefcentral.com/news/chinese-group-plans-to-mass-produce-cloned-beef-cattle/


Chinese group plans to mass-produce cloned beef cattle
By Beef Central, 25 November 2015

The world’s largest cloning factory planned for construction in China will eventually produce one million cloned calves a year, according to the Chinese biotechnology company behind the venture

http://www.beefcentral.com/news/chinese-group-plans-to-mass-produce-cloned-beef-cattle/

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2015/dec/05/chinas-cloned-cows-meat-on-the-table-or-environmental-disaster

China's cloned cows: meat on the table or environmental disaster?

Beijing is acutely aware of how unhappy we citizens are to breathe the smog in our cities or smell the foul odours of our polluted rivers. Yet, by expanding exponentially our commitment to intensive animal agriculture, China will increase emissions of methane, carbon dioxide and another potent greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, which has nearly 300 times the warming power of carbon dioxide.

The project to clone cows is a response to increasing demand for beef and China’s urge to compete with agribusinesses overseas. (In 2014, China produced 11.5% of the world’s beef, nearly 7m tonnes , according to the US Department of Agriculture.) Traditionally, beef wasn’t a staple in local cuisine in most parts of China. In the south of the country, where I grew up, oxen and buffaloes were more valuable alive; they were how rural families sustained their livelihoods.

see also http://wfdinner.com/home/

What's For Dinner? is a short documentary that provides a unique look into the rapidly growing consumption of meat in China and the increasing industrialization of agriculture. Through interactions with people across Chinese society, the film examines the impacts this big shift in food production and consumption is having on sustainability, public health, food security, climate change, and animal welfare.

I was horrified to learn of this (it made the news on TV last night, which followed by flaunting Australia's "first" litter of test tube puppies).
It was presented as a huge step forward.... but failed to mention in which direction.
Aaaargh !