The genetic diversity of livestock and poultry is dwindling, leaving one-third of the world’s protein supply at risk to events such as weather extremes and disease outbreaks.
A new paper from the Council for Agricultural Science and Technology addresses the associated risks with reduced access to genetic traits, as well as what should be done to protect remaining breeds. According to the paper, “up to 25 percent of global livestock breeds are either at risk of being lost, or have already been lost.”
Current conservation practices such as cryopreservation and germplasm repositories are already in use to protect the genes of some animal livestock breeds, but the authors of the CAST paper argue more must be done to prepare for unpredictable future events. They include five recommendations that build on current conservation practices.
“By losing breeds we make finding potential solutions to future production demands much more difficult, and recent history indicates that predicting future demand is problematic,” the authors write. “Conserving breeds saves these options and keeping them in the agricultural landscape is a reminder that these options exist.”
The paper, Protecting Food Animal Gene Pools for Future Generations-A paper in the series on The Need for Agricultural Innovation to Sustainably Feed the World by 2050, is available for free download on CAST’s website.
