Cloned food

Is that a turd clone I see?
Image from the Advanced Cell Technology website (the mouse is actually a lab animal and not necessarily a clone)

I'm not going to weigh in on the cloned food announcement from the FDA. Many far more knowledgeable people have expressed their opinions about it here, here, here and elsewhere. What struck me in my daily blog troll was that the two big farmer lobbying groups, the American Farm Bureau and the National Farmers Union, have strikingly different positions on this issue. The AFB says, "Bring in the clones." The NFU, on the other hand, calls the decision "troubling".

That could very well be of extremely minor interest to people who aren't as nerdy and pedantic about this stuff as I am - but it really made me wonder what could account for the difference. Of course, even though the percentage of the population that farms shrinks every year, there are still about 3 million people working directly in the farm sector - which is clearly not a monolithic bunch.

Still, it does make me wonder.