Clone farm cows born in Britain: How long before their meat and milk is on sale in our shops?

Their mother is a clone – created in a U.S. laboratory with cells taken from the ear of a prize-winning animal.

Meat or milk from the calves, flown into Britain as frozen embryos and implanted into a surrogate, could be on sale here within months. Though food from clones is barred from the food chain, there are no legal safeguards over their offspring.

Details of the births came as a study found an overwhelming majority of consumers object to all 'clone farm' plans.

Research published by the Food Standards Agency showed they consider it a dangerous manipulation of nature and are unhappy that scientists are racing ahead.

The Daily Mail revealed last year that clone farming had become a reality in Britain.

We identified the births of a Holstein calf called Dundee Paradise and her brother Dundee Paratrooper.

Now six more animals with the same clone mother have been born in the Midlands - taking the total to four males and four females.

Embryos from another clone are known to have been imported, although none has yet been born.

The food and farming department DEFRA has been accused of shocking complacency over clone farming.

Its officials admitted yesterday that they had no idea how many clone offspring are on British farms.

Four of the calves were born at Smiddiehill Holsteins in Albrighton, Shropshire.

This herd has since been broken up and sold and it is not known where the animals are now.

The FSA study, conducted by analysts at Creative Research, is the first in-depth investigation of public attitudes to clone farming.

It found that the more consumers learned about cloning, the more they objected. Authorities in the U.S. gave their approval to clone farm food in January.

There are suggestions that meat and milk from clones or their offspring could soon be in shops and restaurants there.

As the law stands, there is nothing to stop this food being imported to the UK without any controls or labels.