Genetic conservation now needed

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 230, 9 February 1988, Page 11

Genetic conservation now needed

The emergence of a few specialised high performance livestock breeds could lead to insufficient genetic diversity for the agricultural industry to cope with changing circurnstances, a Massey University animal scientist has warned. Professor Al Rae was opening the inaugural

meeting of the Rare Breeds Conservation Society of New Zealand at Massey on Monday 1 February. "In the context of livestock breeds the need for conservation is relatively recent," he said. "It arises, to a very considerably extent, from the application of modern breeding techniques and highly intensive feeding and management systems beginning in the late

1930s and early '40s. "These have resulted in very rapid increases in individual animal performance, but it has also been very uneven in its application and its : consequences from breed to breed." This meant a few specialised, high performance breeds were beginning to dominate, such as the North Amcrican Fricsian in the dairy industries of temperate world regions. Less productive local breeds were being ousted, Professor Rae said. "The risk involved in this is that if economic objectives, market requirements, and conditions of production change there may be insufficient genetic diversity and flexibility left to allow a response to these changcd circumstanccs." He reiterated an observation made in 1980 that most breeders, breed societies and their advisers had been unsuccessful in prcdicting changes in demand and had been rcluctant to alter dircction in their breeding efforts till overtaken by events. The new society would need to look at various conservation strategies, Professor Rae said. It would have to decide if active improvemcnt should be undertaken in less popular and profitablc breeds, or if passive conservation should prevail with rare breeds being protccted from human forces which might bring about genetic change.