12 CapitalPress.com
August 26, 2016
Clone
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The team soon formed, found a
steer carcass and a cow carcass with
the requisite grading qualities, took
tissue samples and turned them over
to a private Texas company, ViaGen,
which specializes in cloning cattle,
horses, sheep, goats, pigs and even
cats and dogs.
ViaGen created a bull, named Al-
pha, from the steer carcass, and three
heifers — Gamma One, Gamma Two
and Gamma Three — from the cow
carcass.
Artiﬁ cial insemination of the
Gammas with semen from Alpha has
resulted in 13 calves, the ﬁ rst bovine
offspring of two cloned parents.
Seven of the offspring, all steers,
were raised in a conventional manner,
including ﬁ nishing time at a grain feed-
lot, and slaughtered. Lawrence said the
results are promising, especially given
the small sample size. The offspring
tended to produce better grade beef
than average, and yield grades were
ones and twos. The carcasses had 9
percent larger ribeye steaks than aver-
age and 45 percent more marbling, the
desirable white specks of intramuscu-
lar fat. They had 16 percent less “trim”
fat, the waste fat that doesn’t improve
taste. The work is continuing.
The idea, of course, is that higher
grade beef — raised the same way as
regular cattle — would bring a greater
return to the rancher.
Lawrence said beef quality is an
afterthought in most cattle breeding
operations, and West Texas A&M is
turning that around.
“It’s kind of a meat science per-
spective on animal breeding, begin-
ning with the end,” he said.
Courtesy of Carman Ranch
Cory Carman, who raises beef cattle in Northeastern Oregon, said her customers are more interested in livestock handling practices, nutritional proﬁ le and ﬂ avor than
the fat marbling sought by cattle cloners.
To attract consumers, beef
producers should try a
little grass-fed tenderness
By ERIC MORTENSON
The doubters
Capital Press
For critics and some in the indus-
try, however, the West Texas work is
a non-starter.
“My ﬁ rst take is that it’s a lot of
work for little gain,” said Jaydee
Hanson, senior policy analyst with
the Center for Food Safety in Wash-
ington, D.C.
Hanson said traditional cattle
breeders “keep a real close eye on the
genetics of their herd” and produce
good quality beef for lower cost than
cloning.
He said it’s unclear whether the
West Texas A&M animals have en-
countered problems reported in other
clones, such as Large Offspring Syn-
drome that can make birthing difﬁ -
cult. Achieving the good marbling re-
sults with grass fed cattle, without the
expense of ﬁ nishing them at a feedlot,
might be of more beneﬁ t to produc-
ers, he said.
“At the end of the day, it’s whether
a farmer can produce a high-quality
product that the customer wants, at a
price that will keep them in business,”
Hanson said.
What are grocery shoppers
looking for when they examine the
offerings in the meat display?
What they’re most likely to
see is a USDA grade — prime,
choice or select — that is based
on the amount of intramuscular fat
marbling. The more marbling, the
higher the grade.
But some producers and univer-
sity researchers believe the USDA
grading system is out of date, and
that consumers are considering
other factors.
William F. “Frank” Hendrix, a
meat scientist at Washington State
University, said a grading standard
for beef tenderness may come
about in the next ﬁ ve years.
“As a customer, I want a tender
piece of beef and I want it really
ﬂ avorful,” he said. “I don’t want
very much fat.”
Hendrix puts his taste buds
where his mouth is. He’s part of a
Washington State team that identi-
ﬁ ed DNA markers for beef tender-
ness. By taking a hair, blood or tis-
sue sample, researchers can predict
tenderness, and breed for that trait.
The research showed tenderness is
an inherited trait.
To clone cattle in an attempt to
duplicate a prime, or fat-marbled,
carcass — as West Texas A&M
University is doing — doesn’t in-
terest Hendrix.
“I would scratch my head about
it,” he said. “Not to criticize an-
other scientist’s work, but it would
not be a goal of mine. Beef quality
work is turning a different direc-
tion.”
A 2009 taste test conducted by
Oregon State University’s Food
Innovation Center in Portland shed
some light on consumers’ prefer-
How to clone
Cloning has been around since
1996, when Scottish researchers an-
nounced the arrival of Dolly the sheep.
The discovery touched off speculation
about future uses of the technology,
but since then cloning has primarily
been conﬁ ned to livestock breeding.
It’s used, for example, to build dairy
herds or to pass along the genetics of
prized rodeo bucking bulls.
A cloned animal is not genetically
modiﬁ ed. Rather, it is a duplicate of
the donor animal. Advocates often re-
fer to a clone as an identical twin born
later. Lawrence, the West Texas A&M
meat scientist, calls the result “a very
fancy Xerox copy, if you will.”
To achieve it, scientists take an egg
from a female animal and replace its
gene-containing nucleus with the nu-
cleus of a cell from the animal they
want to copy. The egg cell forms an
embryo, which is implanted in the
uterus of a host female. The surrogate
carries the pregnancy to term and de-
livers a calf.
ViaGen, the Texas company,
charges $21,000 to clone a female and
$23,000 to clone a bull.
After several years of study, the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration
ruled in January 2008 that meat or
milk from cloned animals or from their
offspring is safe for human consump-
tion and didn’t require special labeling.
The approval applied to cattle, pigs
and goats but not sheep, because there
wasn’t enough information available
about them, the FDA said.
Since the FDA’s decision, however,
cloning animals for food hasn’t taken
hold.
Wolf
Area in
WASH. detail
CONTINUED from Page A1
FOR. 395
Republic
Kettle
20
FERRY
Approximate
site of Profanity
Peak wolfpack
COLLVILLE
CONFEDERATED
21
TRIBES
um bia River
395
C ol
“We won’t put anybody on
the ground until we feel we
absolutely have to,” Commis-
sioner Mike Blankenship said.
“We’ll see how it goes.”
Wolves are a state-pro-
tected species. If the county
moves to shoot wolves, it will
test the state’s jurisdiction
over wildlife.
“I would prefer to avoid
that,” Blankenship said.
He said WDFW’s ofﬁ cial
count of cattle killed and in-
jured by wolves understates
the losses suffered by ranch-
ers.
“An operator has been
losing an animal a day since
25
STEVENS
25
N
Capital Press graphic
their animals were put on the
range,” he said. “Should Fish
and Wildlife fail to, we’re pre-
pared to step up and ﬁ nish that
job.”
The state has never re-
moved an entire pack. In 2012,
ences. More than
100
panelists
compared ham-
burgers
made
from grass-fed
cattle raised at
Carman Ranch
William “Frank” in Northeast Or-
egon’s Wallowa
Hendrix
County to ham-
burgers made from ground beef
purchased at a Fred Meyer store.
The test, run by OSU sensory
specialist Ann Colonna, showed
that 54 percent of participants pre-
ferred the grass-fed patty, while 44
percent preferred the conventional
hamburgers. Two percent saw no
difference.
A greater disparity revealed it-
self in perceptions. Overwhelming
majorities said grass-fed beef was
more healthy, more humane, better
for the environment, ﬂ avorful and
safe.
Cory Carman, the ranch owner,
said the deﬁ nition of quality is one
of the biggest issues in agriculture
today.
“If quality is deﬁ ned by the
processors or distributors, it’s of-
ten uniformity, shelf life, and other
attributes that make money for the
middle people,” Carman said in an
email.
But consumers are looking at
factors such as ﬂ avor, nutrition and
animal welfare practices, she said.
“These things aren’t visual-
ly apparent in the same way (fat)
marbling is,” she wrote, “but mar-
bling is only a relatively recent
metric of quality and only delivers
one attribute in what is a very com-
plex product.”
Carman said she will not invest
in technology that isn’t directly
responsive to her customers’ prior-
ities and doesn’t contribute to the
ecological health of her land.
Will Homer, chief operations ofﬁ -
cer for Painted Hills Natural Beef in
Fossil, Ore., said his company decided
several years ago not to get involved
with cloned livestock.
Even though cloned animals are not
genetically modiﬁ ed, “You’re some-
what playing with Mother Nature,” he
said. “There’s not going to be a very
warm reception from the consumer for
a cloned animal.
WDFW announced plans
to remove the Wedge Pack
in Stevens County. Wildlife
managers shot seven wolves,
but two wolves survived.
WDFW said in a press re-
lease that removing the rest of
the Profanity Peak pack will
be hard because the wolves
have retreated to rugged tim-
berlands in the Kettle River
Range.
Amaroq Weiss of the Cen-
ter for Biological Diversi-
ty said the county shouldn’t
shoot wolves.
“Thumbing your nose at
state law doesn’t engender a
lot of respect from the rest of
the public about your attitudes
of living with wildlife,” she
said. “This isn’t the 1850s.”
Stevens County rancher
Scott Nielsen, vice president
Beef taste test results
Oregon State University’s Food Innovation Center asked partici-
pants to compare hamburgers made from grass-fed beef with those
made from conventional beef. Taste test results show panelists
believe grass-fed tastes better and is more healthy.
Question: What are your perceptions of grass-fed beef?
Perception
Percent response
88 percent
Healthy
More humane
Better for
environment
Flavorful
58
Safe
58
76
71
Expensive
49
Gamy
13
Tough
5
None
3
Imported 0
“That is the stone wall right there
that they need to be aware of,” Homer
said of the West Texas researchers.
“The consumer would just blow their
top.”
Homer said the volatile economics
of the cattle industry in recent years,
with falling prices and rising costs,
offset herd improvements that might
come from cloning.
Painted Hills, formed by seven
ranching families, walks a tight mar-
ket line. It delivers grain-ﬁ nished cat-
tle to a large-scale processor in Pasco,
Wash., and takes grass-fed cattle to a
specialty processor, Dayton Natural
Meats in Dayton, Ore.
In addition to processing Paint-
ed Hills’ grass-fed beef, the Dayton
facility processes hogs that are non-
GMO veriﬁ ed, and organic turkeys
and chickens. The facility processes
meat for New Seasons markets, a Port-
land-based chain that caters to cus-
tomers who prefer and are willing to
pay more for locally grown, organic or
sustainable food.
“We would stay as far away from
clones as possible,” said Reg Keddie,
general manager of Dayton Natural
Meats.
Keddie said consumers already
struggle to understand where their
food comes from and would reject
beef that had its “inception in a petri
dish.” The Texas researchers, he said,
are most likely aiming at the conven-
tional meat companies that process
thousands of cows a day.
Cory Carman, a Northeast Ore-
gon cattle rancher who has carved
out a niche selling grass-fed beef to
high-end markets in Portland, said her
customers are primarily interested in
Carman Ranch’s practices and the nu-
of the Cattle Producers of
Washington, said the county
has a duty to respond if the
state fails.
“I’m sure they’ll get por-
trayed as a bunch of rednecks
on the westside (of Washing-
ton) if they act, but they’ve
been forced into it,” he said.
According to WDFW pol-
icy, the department considers
culling a pack after four con-
ﬁ rmed depredations. Ranchers
are obligated to take measures
to prevent attacks.
Four conservation groups
that helped shape the policy
issued a statement Wednesday
calling the shooting of wolves
“deeply regrettable,” but that
WDFW was following a pro-
tocol agreed to by the conser-
vation groups and other orga-
nizations.
Survey size: 112 consumers
Source: OSU, Food Innovation Center
Alan Kenaga/Capital Press
tritional proﬁ le and ﬂ avor of its meat.
They don’t ask about yield and quality
grade, she said.
“If our primary request was for
more marbling in our meat, we might
look into the ethics behind cloning
or research the technology, but no
one asks for that,” Carman said in an
email. “Marbling isn’t the primary
driver of meat quality for us.”
Jack Field, executive vice president
of the Washington Cattlemen’s Asso-
ciation, said cloning may not be worth
the risk of consumer backlash. As with
GMOs, he said, science says it’s safe
and the beneﬁ ts are apparent, but so-
cial reaction is such that “all of a sud-
den, the science goes out the window.”
In addition, producers can improve
their herds with technical tools already
available, Field said. Genetic testing at
$18 to $20 a head can help producers
select bulls and heifers to breed for
beef tenderness, yield and other traits,
he said.
“You can move your herd to what-
ever your consumer is asking for,”
Field said.
Lawrence, the West Texas A&M
meat scientist, nonetheless believes in
the research and what it could mean
for herd improvement. Among other
things, he thinks the work may uncov-
er another trait potential.
“We may be selecting for better
immune systems,” he said. “For an an-
imal to be Prime and Yield Grade One
simultaneously, it’s probably had no or
very few bad days in its life. So are we
selecting for (good health)?
“We’re moving the curve to higher
quality and higher yield at the same
time,” he said. “I think it’s very viable
for the beef industry to ﬁ nd traits that
are desirable and to propagate those.”
Coba
CONTINUED from Page A1
In a state with such a
wide variety of crops and
producers, that’s important,
he said.
He called on Gov. Kate
Brown to consult with the
people whose livelihoods
depend on agriculture be-
fore choosing the next ODA
director. “To me it’s of vital
importance to make sure
producer voices are heard,”
he said.
Coba’s appointment is
effective Oct. 1 but requires
conﬁ rmation by the Ore-
gon Senate in September,
according to a news release
from the Governor’s Ofﬁ ce.
Coba, who has been agri-
culture director since 2003,
started working in state gov-
ernment in 1985.
Kristin Grainger, a
spokeswoman for the gover-
nor, said Coba, a Pendleton
native, is a “proven leader”
and “committed to excel-
lence” in state government.
“Her roots in rural Or-
egon and Eastern Oregon
were inﬂ uential as well,”
Grainger said.
Grainger said the state’s
budget development process
will likely be a focal point
for Coba in her new posi-
tion.
The Department of Ag-
riculture’s deputy director,
Lisa Charpilloz Hanson,
will serve as interim director
starting Oct. 1, until a suc-
cessor to Coba is appointed.