North-to-South Livestock Gene Flows
Crowd out Local Breeds
In contrast to plant genetic resources, where genes
have moved largely from South to North as industrialized countries search for
disease-resistance and adaptive traits to be incorporated into new plant
varieties, movements of livestock germplasm from South to North have been rare
in the past century.
Until the beginning of the nineteenth century, when
breeding organizations were first established in the North due to demand for
higher producing animals, the movement of live animals caused a slow dispersal
of genes largely from South to South and South to North. These flows, starting
from the centres of livestock domestication (in western Asia and the eastern
Mediterranean as well as Southeast Asia, the Indus Valley, North Africa and the
Andes of South America), generally enhanced livestock genetic diversity.
Over the last four to five decades, gene flows via
both live animals and their semen or embryos have accelerated both among
countries of the North and from North to South, propelled by globalization and
the commercialization of animal breeding. In the North, technological advances
have made it possible to ship semen and embryos in addition to live animals (commercial
use of semen started in the 1960s, of embryos in the 1980s, and of sexed
embryos in the mid-1990s.)
The ease of movement encouraged large-scale
replacement of many traditional local breeds with a few high-performance exotic
breeds (called by some ‘Formula One animals’) and helped reduce livestock
genetic diversity. Large White, Duroc and Landrace pigs, Saanen goats, and
Rhode Island Red and
This breed replacement process has already run its
course in North America and
The South now possesses an estimated 70% of the
world’s known livestock breeds, partly because in most countries commercial breeding
has not yet taken hold, breeding stock is still traded without involvement of
breeding organizations or companies, and many areas still lack artificial
insemination coverage. In the face of the on-going Livestock Revolution, for
example, it’s probable that the transfer of pig and cattle breeding genotypes
and systems will increase in rapidly developing countries of the South. In
It is alarming that of the nearly 3,000 breeds newly reported
to FAO between 1999 and 2006 and for which we have population data, 45% are
either at risk or already extinct. It is clear that the South, currently rich
in its livestock genetic diversity, will be the hotspot of breed losses in the
twenty-first century. The crowding out of local breeds is set to accelerate in
many developing countries unless special provisions are made for their conservation
by providing livestock keepers with appropriate support.
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