Lancashire farmers quizzed over cloned embryos

The move by milk wholesalers comes after a pair of Scottish farmers were reported to have illegally allowed beef from American cloned embryos into the food chain.

Although experts say milk and meat from cloned animals pose no health risks, retailers are on red alert as worried consumers seek to avoid produce linked to cloned embryos.

Today, one Lancashire farmer said he had been provided with a legal document to sign on the back of the controversy over cloned embryos.

And the dairy farmer, Gerry Donkin, of Park Gate Farm, Copster Green in the Ribble Valley, said he was ‘more than happy’ to sign the form.

He said: “I have had a letter from a company I supply asking me to guarantee that I haven’t used cloned embryos and I had no problem signing it.

"We have never used cloned embryos.

“It is on the back of the media coverage over the Scottish farm and they are just acting on it.”

Mr Donkin said other Lancashire farmers had been sent similar letters but that it was unlikely any had ever bought cloned embryos from the US because of the ‘prohibitive’ costs.

He added: “You are looking at £10,000 for a cloned embryo from the US.

“I have bought embryos from this country in the past but I would never even consider buying a cloned one.

“I can say that 99.9 per cent of British farmers will be able to offer the guarantee that they have never bought or used cloned embryos.

“I have certainly never come across anybody in Lancashire who has done it.”

David Graveston, a Gisburn dairy farmer and a former chairman of the Lancashire branch of the National Farmers’ Union (NFU), said he believed that ‘one or two’ farmers in the county may have bought embryos from the US.

But he did not know of anyone who had bought or used cloned embryos.

Both Mr Donkin and Mr Graveston, along with the Food Standards Agency (FSA) and NFU, have urged consumers not to panic over the meat from cloned embryos entering the food chain.