The Man Behind the Cloning Movement

It's a cold February morning, and a thin layer of snow covers the ground at the Simplot ranch in Grand View, Idaho, about an hour south of Boise. Scott Simplot drives out to one of the nearby fields to see the cows giving birth. On the windswept field, the tall, wiry 60-year-old asks a ranch hand how the new calves are doing. He smiles when he hears that the first 26 calves weigh in at about average for the breed, 78 pounds each. These are no ordinary calves. They are the offspring of clones. "Great news," says Simplot.

This is the beginning of a grand experiment at the Boise-based J.R. Simplot Co., a producer of food, fertilizer, and livestock that was founded by Scott's father in 1923 and has become one of the largest privately owned companies in the U.S. Simplot is one of the first large beef-producing companies anywhere to clone cattle and then breed them on a commercial scale. Neither clones nor their offspring are in the food distribution system now. But if the Food & Drug Administration...