Economic benefits of cloning
a) Gives a summary of the economic benefits of cloning animals, plants and trees.
Introduction
Cloning has numerous economic benefits on various economic activities. Through increased productivity of both animals and plants is increased both in terms of quantity and quality, cloning increases the profit margins of farmers. Livestock become more drought and disease resistant making them to be less vulnerable to harsh conditions and thus the loss associated with loss of animals to drought is highly reduced. Through cloning, the cost of production is greatly reduced thus enhancing the profits of farmers and at the same time reducing the prices being charged to consumers. Cloning of trees also has numerous benefits, the extinction of vital species of trees is avoided through cloning and thus the benefits of such trees can continue being available to mankind for extended periods of time and hence have more value for longer periods of time. The nutritional value resulting from cloning enables people to live more healthy lives since they are and thus be more productive economically (Kemp, 2004).
Economic benefits of cloning animals
One of the major objectives behind cloning is the creation of genetic duplicates that are exact to those of animals that are considered much superior as compared to other animals in their species in passing on the desirable traits that are naturally occurring such as high productivity and disease resistant. Cloning therefore has a lot economic benefits since the animals obtained through it are more productive. This implies that fewer inputs are required in substantially increasing the productivity of livestock. The increased productivity arising as a result of cloning increases the profit margins of farmers because they require much less costs in making their livestock more productive. Due to cost effectiveness achieved through cloning, it is easier for those in agribusiness to enjoy economies of scale as compared to farmers who are yet to embrace the new technology of cloning. In addition, the increased productivity realized from cloning can result to increased gross domestic product and in turn stimulate economic growth of a country (Longtin Kraemer, 2002).
Cost of production is virtually in all cases passed on to the final consumers if those involved in agribusiness are to make any profits. This therefore means that if these costs are high, then the consumers have to be charged higher prices for such products so that the entrepreneur can be in a position to recoup the costs that were incurred in the production process. However, cloning has resulted in reduced costs of productivity and hence the entrepreneurs in agribusiness are in a position of producing more products at a much lower cost. The consumers are thus charged less for such products since it is possible for these entrepreneurs to break even by charging the consumers lesser prices for their products. While the consumers enjoy reduced prices thanks to cloning, the entrepreneurs can make even more profits since their sales revenues and volume will increase as a result of increased sales. This will be the case because just like any other products in the market, the cloned ones will be affected by the forces of demand and supply, which will dictate that their demand will increase following reduction in their prices (Lu, 2001).
Cloning leads to the breeding of animals with the superior qualities of drought and disease resistance. Diseases and droughts are some of the major challenges faced allover the world today by agribusiness people since they have to contend with them every now and then. Due to climate change and global warming, droughts have become more frequent and severe. Millions of livestock allover the world has been lost to this calamity, as animals are forced to go without water and pasture for days. This does not only impact negatively to the livestock farmers but also to the rest of the population since such losses results into reduced livestock productivity thus reducing the gross domestic product of a country and at the same time leading to increased prices of products. However, thanks to cloning, it is now possible to breed livestock that are more resistant to the drought. The cloned animals cannot die easily as a result of drought implying that the productivity of such animals is not greatly affected by the effects of drought. The farmers are therefore much cautioned against the devastating effects of droughts (Baird, 2002).
Livestock diseases are a major channel through which farmers incur a lot of costs in terms of treating animals and preventing them from falling sick. This is a challenge they are compelled to contend with on a continuous basis since new livestock diseases keep on emerging every now and then. The animals that are not cloned are less resistant from these diseases and hence they suffer frequently from various livestock diseases making their owners to incur heavy expenses and at times lose them to some of these diseases that are quite deadly. Cloning could therefore have not come at a better time than it did. Since the cloned animals are much resistant to most of these diseases, the farmers end up incurring much less expenses on treating and preventing them from falling sick. There are several economic benefits arising from the cloned animals being disease resistant. These animals can endure harsher conditions as compared to the ordinary animals and the cost of rearing them is much less thus benefiting both the farmers rearing them in terms of reduced cost of production and enhanced profit margins (Campbell, 2005).
Cloning offers a chance of more swift genetics distribution as well as the achievement of the targeted outcome consistency. Therefore, it is possible to easily achieve the desired superior qualities that are present in a certain animal without waiting for decades as with some forms of bio technology. The prompt achievement of these results makes it more economical to clone animals as they can be able to utilize the desired qualities soon before such qualities become obsolete. Cloning makes it possible for researchers to deal with problems involved in livestock rearing as soon as they arise. In some bio technologies, solutions are found when it is already too late to use them and despite the great amount of resources and time that are employed in their achievement, they rarely achieve their targeted objectives since by the time they are developed, circumstances have already changed. However, in cloning, the outcomes are achieved rather fast making it possible for the cloned animals to deal with the environmental challenges they were designed to cope with (Font et al, 2006).
Some animals are cloned so that specific traits with economic benefits can be produced. The best example is the transgenic cattle that were specifically created in order to make them produce milk which contains particular proteins of humans that are useful in human emphysema treatment. This has some economic benefits since the disease can be treated and prevented with minimal resource employment. There are other animals that are cloned in a manner that makes them to be used as models of diseases. Cloning in this case greatly improves the study and research of some complicated diseases, which consume a lot of financial resources due to their complications. When the study of such diseases is eased through cloning, then it becomes possible for them to be eliminated and thus save the economy the great financial burdens that usually arise from them (Starr, 2008).
For several decades, farmers have applied selective breeding in order to enhance certain superior qualities evident on their plants or livestock. However, the traditional methods were time consuming and were less accurate in achieving the desired outcome. However, cloning is much more efficient and results in quality results within a relatively short time making it economically viable for the farmers to have their plants and animals cloned. In addition, cloning has resulted into the breeding of cows that are producing milk with less cholesterol. This is a great achievement in the fight against heart diseases that are caused by excess cholesterol obtained from milk and milk products. Apart from the lives that are saved due to reduced heart diseases, there is also the reduction in the health care expenses previously used to treat and prevent such heart complications (Baird, 2002).
Economic benefits of cloning trees
With consumption and deforestation of trees rising every year, the cloning of trees provides a great opportunity of growing more trees that are much superior as compared to the ones that are not cloned. Trees that grow much faster, consume less amounts of water and are more diseases and droughts resistant are being cloned and are resulting to a stream of benefits both economically and environmentally. Trees produce lumber, paper as well as other several products that are very essential to the human society all over the world. Due to cloning of trees, their growth rates has increased dramatically permitting people to harvest them much more faster as compared to the ones that are not cloned, and thus offer increased resources to people allover the world. Trees that are cloned usually produce more efficiently and faster making their yields to be more predictable. In addition, cloning has greatly modified the trees making them to produce more durable, stronger and higher quality products (Higgins, 2009).
Cloning of trees thus slows down the depletion of natural forests, whose depletion has numerous economic sequences on a country. One of the major environmental economic benefits of trees is the creation of carbon sink. Of late, the impacts of global warming have become quite evident. They are quite disastrous and can result to several natural calamities such as tropical cyclones, hurricanes, heat waves, tornadoes and eddy currents. It is also evident that these two phenomena are as a result of increased greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The main green house gas that is causing global warming and thus triggers climate change is carbon dioxide. Through cloning, trees are made to regenerate much faster than they would in normal circumstances and thus create a deeper carbon sink. Carbon is used by the trees in their natural photosynthesis process thus reducing the availability of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, thereby implying that global warming can also be reduced while climate change is brought under control. Cloning of trees therefore basically means that the consequences of global warming that have proofed to be very disastrous with enormous economic implications can be mitigated and thus avoid the economic consequences that are brought about by climate change and global warming (Kemp, 2004).
Cloning of ancient trees make it possible for mankind to retain these ancient species that can easily be endangered or become extinct. There are several economic benefits that are contained in the ancient trees that could be lost if these trees actually became extinct. They are usually harvested for medicinal purposes, high quality timber and several wood other products. The demand for these trees is much higher compared to their ability to regenerate. However, the products that are obtained from these trees are very essential to mankind and cannot do without some of them such as medicine. Cloning of these trees is therefore very important in ensuring that these benefits continue to be realized in a sustainable safe manner. There are some of valuable and rare ancient trees that are being cloned in Beijing, China. They are being cloned in order to ensure that the economic and environmental benefits obtained from them are not lost (Higgins, 2009).
Cloning of trees also ensures that the forests remain intact for a much longer period of time. Forests are major water catchment areas and they therefore contribute significantly to the hydrological water cycle. In several nations allover the world, water from forests constitutes a major source of income to millions of people who involve themselves in various economic activities supported by the water emanating from the forests. Without cloning of trees in such forests, the water resources can reduce to below levels with much economic benefits. Therefore, cloning indirectly supports the economic activities that rely in one way or another on the water resources (Kemp, 2004).
Economic benefits of cloning plants
By cloning plants, it makes it easier to predict their output levels and thus make the yields of such plants more reliable. Reliability is a very important aspect in all types of business and agribusiness is no exception. It enables all the stakeholders involved to better plan their activities in advance and thus boost their chance of making higher profits and reducing costs of production. Reliable productivity of agricultural crops makes it possible for the farmers to access loans from the financial institutions and thus enhances the productivity of their crops. Due to reliability of the yields obtained from cloned agricultural plants, it is possible for the sector to save a lot of money each season that could have been lost as a result of poor predictability. The plants that are cloned usually reproduce much faster, and hence limit the time taken between sowing and harvesting. In essence, this means that the land productivity is greatly enhanced through cloning since agricultural plants can be planted more frequently than in the case of ordinary plants. Increased land productivity means that farmers can make more profits from cloned crops since they have much more yields that are harvested after a short time, have a higher quality and their productivity is more predictable and reliable (Longtin Kraemer, 2002).
Through cloning, it is possible to produce plants that are more resistant to pesticides in a more efficient manner. It is less costly to produce various seeds more efficiently through cloning as opposed to the production via traditional means. It is also possible to essentially optimize plants so that the individual gardeners or farmers always obtain the best seeds that are available. With increased yields being produced at a high rate, cloning can make farms to produce much more food and other agricultural products for a bigger population and at the same time reduce the overall costs of production (Baird, 2002).
Cloning of plants also has numerous benefits in preventing plants from being affected by various common diseases. Plant cloning via tissue culture is very crucial in the eradication of various diseases that are known to have devastating effects once they attack plants. Cloned plants are therefore very useful economically as they reduced chances of a whole crop being wiped by a certain diseases resulting into heavy losses on all the stakeholders involved in the agribusiness sector of the economy. Once the plants are made immune to most of the common diseases that affect most plants, the gardeners and farmers allover the world would be saved from incurring losses running into several billion of US dollars each year. Cloning of plants can also be very essential in making crop failures resulting from virus and diseases, a thing that only belongs to the past, which the gardeners and the farmers should no longer worry about since they cannot incur losses as a result of such crop failures (Kemp, 2004).
Through cloning of plants, it is possible for scientists to develop vegetables, fruits and several other farm products with nutritional quality that is superior. In turn, this could greatly reduce the deficiencies in nutrition that are being experienced in several parts of the world and hence result to a population that is much healthier. This would have several economic benefits especially due to the fact that less money would be spent on treating and preventing various diseases that result from nutritional deficiencies. Such financial resources, together with other resources can be used in other sectors of an economy and thus stimulate more economic growth. In addition, once a population feeds on food with more nutritional value, it will be healthier. A health population is in turn a productive one which is able to exploit more resources with increased efficiency and thus lead to more economic growth and development (Longtin Kraemer, 2002).
Consequences of cloning
Due to the fact that cloning brings about genes that are identical and it is basically a process through which a whole genetic constitution is replicated, cloning can hamper greatly with the diversity that is needed a lot in plants and animals. This can result to weaker adaptability of both plants and animals to their environment. The weakened plants and animal generations can result to heavy costs being incurred since they are very vulnerable to the harsh climatic conditions. Cloned animals and plants usually have serious difficulties in their response to viruses, bacterium and other agents that are quite destructive. As a result, once a cloned animal or plant species is attacked by such agents, its chances of surviving are minimal thereby making the farmers and indeed the whole economy to incur heavy losses.
By permitting scientists to interfere with the plants and animals genetics, there are possibilities of intentional reproduction of traits that are not desired and which are known to be disastrous. Increased reproduction of such traits can have very serious cost implications once they are produced in great numbers. Cloning can make such traits that are less desirable to be dominant ones thereby suppressing the desired traits which might be more drought and disease resistant as well as more productive.
Conclusion
The economic benefits of cloning mainly come in the form of reduced operating costs resulting to higher profit margins for those people who are dealing with the cloned products. once the costs of production in a country has reduced substantially and the productivity levels have increased with huge margins, the growth of the countrys gross domestic product is much enhanced. The increased capacity of the economy generates more employment opportunities for the people at various levels. The real income of the people within a nation that is using such technology also increases substantially thereby raising their living standards.