Cattle Consequences for the use of species and breeds

Kor Oldenbroek 20 Utilisation and conservation of farm animal genetic resources

4.3. Insurance against the loss of resources with a high strategic value

Recent outbreaks of diseases, wars and the development of biological weapons created political awareness for the value of genetic resources currently in use for food production. When these resources are destroyed, the investments in it are lost and breeding material should be obtained from abroad. A back up of the genetic material currently in use, preserved in a gene bank, gives the opportunity for a quick restart of a breeding program and safeguards national food production systems.

4.4. Opportunities for research

World-wide in animal production, molecular geneticists are searching for genes, which inluence production, quality of products, and health and reproduction traits of animals. In this search, the analysis of a high variety of breeds and crosses between breeds with extreme characteristics has played an important role. he latter guarantees a high degree of heterozygosity and linkage disequilibrium, which is required to detect associations between highly polymorphic marker loci and polymorphism’s at quantitative and qualitative trait loci.

4.5. Present socio-economic value

In many countries and areas of the world local breeds guarantee a livelihood in harsh areas where high-input high-output livestock systems are not feasible. In addition, the local breeds are used by a small group of farmers sometimes for special reasons e.g. biological farming or grazing of marginal lands or special purposes e.g. local products for niche markets. he development of breeding programs for these local breeds is too costly for breeding organisations and the absence of a breeding program is a direct threat for the existence of the breed. However, present socio-economic value, which creates income for large human populations in developing countries and for small farmers in rural areas of developed countries like the Alps in Europe and the renewed interest for the development of regional products, justify the establishment of a conservation program.

4.6. Cultural and historic reasons

Many breeds are the result of a long domestication process and a long period of adaptation to local circumstances. hey relect a long history of symbioses between mankind and farm animals and can help to clarify adaptation processes, which can still be worthwhile for the management of animals in present production systems. More generally they are documents of the history of rural populations and as such they can be

Chapter 1. Introduction