News Desk
NINGXIA: In a significant breakthrough for the country’s dairy industry, Chinese scientists have successfully cloned three “super cows” that could produce an exceptionally high amount of milk, state media reported.
The three calves, bred by researchers from the Northwest University of Agricultural and Forestry Science and Technology, were born in Ningxia in the weeks leading up to the Lunar New Year, the Ningxia Daily reported. They were cloned from highly productive cows of the Holstein Friesian breed, originating from the Netherlands, that can produce 18 tons of milk per year, or 100 tons in their lifetime, which is nearly 1.7 times the amount produced by an average cow in the United States in 2021, as per the US Department of Agriculture.
The project’s lead scientist, Jin Yaping, referred to the birth of the super cows as a “breakthrough” for China to preserve the finest cows “in an economically feasible way.”
Five out of 10,000 cows in China can produce 100 tons of milk in their lifetime, making them valuable for breeding, but many of the highly productive cows are noticed at the end of their life, making it challenging to breed them.
China currently imports 70% of its dairy cows
As much as 70% of China’s dairy cows are currently imported from foreign countries. The researchers plan to build up a herd of over 1,000 super cows in the next two to three years to reduce the country’s reliance on overseas dairy cows and minimize the risk of supply chain disruptions.
In many countries, including the United States, cloning is used by farmers to add desirable traits such as high milk production and disease resistance into their gene pool.
China, in recent years, has made significant progress in animal cloning, with the creation of the world’s first cloned Arctic wolf by a Chinese animal cloning company last year. In 2017, Chinese scientists claimed to produce cloned cattle with increased resistance to bovine tuberculosis.
