China scientists claimed Wednesday to have successfully cloned mutant “super cows” that produce abnormally large amounts of milk.
Chinese state-affiliated media, Ningxia Daily, reported that right before Chinese New Year the three cloned calves were born in the Ningxia region.
The animals were cloned from “super cows” that have the ability to produce an unusually large quantity of milk, the Chinese tabloid Global Times sets out.
The chosen beasts are capable of producing 18 tons of milk per year, or 100 tons of milk in their lifetimes.
That is nearly 1.7 times the amount of milk an average cow in the U.S. produced in 2021, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
Only five in 10,000 of common cattle breeds in China can produce as much milk as a super cow, the scientists told the Times.
Milkers milk cows next to a spinning platter in Hai ‘an, Jiangsu province, China, Oct 9, 2022. (CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
The project lead, Jin Yaping, told the outlet his team “reincarnated” the super cows to help bolster China’s local milk production.
As much as 70 percent of China’s dairy cows are imported from overseas, according to the Times report, and the Communist government is determined to be self sufficient as it industrialises more and more of its domestic food supply chain.
“We plan to take two to three years to build up a herd comprised of over 1,000 super cows, as a solid foundation to tackle China’s reliance on overseas dairy cows and the issue of the risk of being ‘choked’ [by supply chain disruptions],” Jin told the newspaper.
As far back as 2015 Chinese scientists were publicly acknowledging their aim of producing one million cloned cows a year, as Breitbart News reported.
Their ambition didn’t stop there.
Whoa! https://t.co/F3bWZ4qtvm
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) December 7, 2020
The Chinese scientist behind the world’s biggest cloning factory said technology advanced enough to replicate humans was also available, but fear of the public reaction was stopping progress in that regard.
In the factory pipeline are also thoroughbred racehorses, as well as pet and police dogs, specialised in searching and sniffing.
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