It is an idea that has both alarmed and astonished the world for decades. We all like to think that the lamb on our plate has been raised in a rural idyll, frolicking innocently through lush, rolling fields until the moment of the final chop. That it might have started life not in the pasture, but the petri dish, is a source of revulsion and even fear to many.

But do such concerns have any basis in scientific fact, or are they mere hysteria fuelled by fear of the unknown?

There are two key questions at the heart of the debate: safety and ethics.

While a recent study for the Food Standards Agency found that the public had severe concerns about the safety of cloned meat, these are largely unfounded, according to expert opinion. In January, the US government approved the production and marketing of foods derived from cloned animals, with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) ruling that meat and milk from cloned pigs, cattle and goats and their offspring was "as safe as food we eat every day". The European Food Safety Authority followed suit, releasing draft guidance concluding that foods from cloned pigs and cattle posed no additional risks over conventionally bred animals.

That does not mean, however, that a relation of Dolly the Sheep is to find its way onto your dinner table any time soon. While in the United States, cloned meat could be on sale within the next two or three years, in Europe, the prospect remains some way off.

EU law would require clone-derived produce to be undergo safety testing as a "novel food" and approved by all 27 EU member states before being sold. However the FSA says the legislation is something of a grey area, with legal opinion divided as to whether it applies only to food derived from an original clone or includes that from clones’ offspring. But at present, no such produce is thought to be present in the British food chain. With an “overwhelming majority” of Britons saying they would shun such food if it became available, according to the FSA study, here at least the debate is far from over.

Creative Research, the firm which carried out the £55,000 study, found that consumers were concerned about safety, ethics and animal welfare and mistrustful of those involved in producing and regulating such food.

But the report, compiled from focus group results, also identified deeply-held misgivings about the ethics of cloned produce.

It says: "Most participants felt animal cloning represented a quantum leap ... to 'interfering with mother nature'." And, irrespective of feelings about it "everyone was worried that this was the start of a slippery slope" that would eventually lead to human cloning.

Unlike safety worries, these concerns are well-founded. Whether or not one believes that cloning amounts to playing God, there are legitimate issues with the health and welfare of cloned animals.

Chris Warkup, Chief Executive of the Genesis Faraday Partnership at the Roslin Institute, University of Edinburgh, which specialises in animal genetics, cites evidence of health problems in cloned animals. “There are some legitimate animal welfare concerns with the process - for cattle and sheep - with higher rates of pregnancy problems and perhaps as high as 20 per cent of animals showing early mortality for a range of reasons, some of which are development abnormalities.”

However he noted that such problems were diminishing as efficiency improved, and did not in any case apply to the progeny of clones, or to cloned pigs and goats. There was little interest in using clones themselves in food production as diversity was essential to the breeding industry, he said. Instead, any such application would involve their progeny only, Mr Warkup explained, adding that the cost of cloning was so high that this is unlikely to be widespread.

But of course, this nevertheless involves suffering for the original clone, regardless of whether or not it ends up as the Sunday roast. The European Group on Ethics in Science and Technology doubts whether cloning animals is ethically justified, "given the current level of [animal] suffering and health problems".

In a society with little tolerance for animal cruelty - and an ever more feverish obsession with organic produce - it seems the prospect of dining on Dolly is still a very long way off.

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