BRUSSELS - The environment and agriculture committees of the European Parliament approved a draft law to ban the cloning of all farm animals in the European Union (EU) on Wednesday.

The ban also covered the descendants of cloned animals and products derived from them, including imports, said the European Parliament in a press release.

Moreover, the MEPs extended the ban's scope to cover all species of animals kept and reproduced for farming purposes, instead of only bovine, ovine, caprine and equine species, as proposed by the commission.

MEPs beefed up the European Commission's initial proposal, citing high mortality rates at all development stages of cloning and EU citizens' animal welfare and ethical concerns.

The draft law would be put to a vote by the European Parliament as a whole at the plenary session in Strasbourg, France in September.