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Why Heritage Breeds?

In a world where modern high-performance breeds and hybrids give more milk, lay more eggs and produce more meat faster than ever before, why should anyone bother keeping the old, traditional breeds? 

These are the reasons:

Genetic Diversity | Horses for Courses | History & Heritage

Variety & Fun | The (Sad) State of Affairs

Modern agro-industry relies for our food production on a very small number of genetically very uniform breeds of livestock ( or varieties of plants for that matter). As an example, the Holstein breed of dairy cattle, that produces most of the milk for the North American dairy industry, numbers more than 19 million registered head in the U.S. alone. 85% of them are produced by artificial insemination using a very small number of bulls. 

The population is consequently so inbred, that the effective population size – (definition: an ideal population of a given size that would have the same amount of inbreeding as the population under consideration) – is only about 36! That is a risky approach: because the individual animals are so similar, they are likely to react to any problem, say, a new disease, in a similar way.  

The traditional breeds constitute a vast gene pool, a reservoir of characteristics, that we risk loosing at our own peril. Who knows when we might need just such a trait as may be part of the genetic make-up of one of the many historic breeds of livestock? 

And of course, new breeds aren't created out of thin air - they are developed out of already existing breeds. 

Times change. Market demands, cultural attitudes, environmental conditions and many other factors that influence our livestock industry are subject to constant fluctuation. Conserving the rich variety of the past gives us the material we need to meet the changing demands of the future.

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The modern high-performance livestock breeds were developed for specific situations: controlled-environment laying batteries, hog houses etc. where they are fed scientifically formulated high energy diets based on cereals and soybean (and are, incidentally, in direct competition with humans for the same foodstuffs). 

 Quite frequently, in an effort to cut costs, the agro-industry has resorted to feeding ingredients that would not normally be part of that animal’s diet, such as animal by-products to naturally strictly vegetarian cows and sheep, leading to the spread of diseases such as BSE or Mad Cow Disease. Even “reconstituted” poultry manure has found its way into cattle feed. (Ugh!)

When animals become ill, they are medicated, and quite often even if they are not. The use of antibiotics as growth promoters in animal feed is still common in North America, increasing the risk of antibiotic-resistant infections in people. (In the European Union, this practice is now banned.) Hormones may be used to increase litter sizes and boost milk yields.

This is a very resource-intensive form of agriculture, and while outputs are maximised, inputs are equally high. It comes as no surprise that, while in the 50 years since the start of the "Green Revolution" (nothing to do with environment!) farm outputs have risen, in some areas dramatically, farm incomes have not, or have even declined as the costs of farming have increased even more than production.

And while the huge agro-industry businesses are growing in number, they are still by far not the majority of farms. Of the roughly 20,000 farms in British Columbia, more than half are classified as "small" with less than $10,000 yearly income from farming. These smaller, family farms - and not only they - would often be far better served with livestock breeds that are suitable for a lower input way of farming. Sheep that will thrive on marginal grazing. Chickens that will forage and know to run for cover when they spot a hawk. Grass-fed cattle whose calves do not have to be delivered by caesarean section. Turkeys that can mate naturally and do not have to rely on artificial insemination for procreation.

Every farm is different. It is obvious that a farm in the "Warm Land" of the Cowichan Valley will have different requirements for its livestock than one up in northern B.C. or out on the Prairies. Centuries of breeding in environments as diverse as the lush lowlands of England, the European Alps, the scorching hot, dry plateau of the Spanish Meseta or the harsh, wet and windy islands off the coast of Scotland have produced a breed of livestock suitable for almost any environment. Would you believe a sheep that lives almost entirely on seaweed? True - the North Ronaldsay from the Scottish Orkney Islands. Or a chicken bred specifically for marshy land? The Marsh Daisy.

Of course, it also depends on what your market is. A hand spinner, for example, will tell you that the wool from every breed of sheep is different and has different uses. A knitter of those superfine Shetland wedding shawls that can be drawn through a wedding ring will be looking for a different kind of wool than, say, a carpet manufacturer. Your customers may be looking for meat that is leaner, or more marbled, carcasses that dress out at different weights, eggs with a variety of shell colours.

All this can be accommodated by finding the right breed for a given situation amongst our many traditional breeds.

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Traditional breeds of livestock are a part of our agricultural heritage. We look after our historic buildings. Why should it be any different for our historic livestock?

 Having links to our past is important to most of us, and it is not so very long ago that the majority of the population worked in agriculture. Historic breeds can find one of their many niches in recreations of historic villages and other heritage settings where they will make a big contribution to the authenticity of the exhibits (apart from being big crowd pullers…!).

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Humans like variety. (Just look at the bread department of any supermarket…) How boring a world with only one or two breeds each of pigs, cattle, sheep, goats, chickens, ducks, geese ….!

Farmers want to enjoy their animals, too - farm life is tough enough. And even folks who just want a few chickens to scratch around in their backyard would surely prefer to see a few different colours, shapes and sizes. Or they might want to keep a few chickens, or ducks, or sheep, from the countries of their ancestors, to remind them of their family's past (the heritage thing again!).

It is all possible - dozens of old breeds to pick and choose from! Have fun and save our traditional breeds of livestock from extinction in the process!

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In Europe, half of the breeds that existed at the turn of the century have become extinct; a third of the remaining 770 breeds are in danger of disappearing over the next 20 years. In North America, over one-third of all breeds of livestock and poultry are considered rare or in decline.

Worldwide, the situation is just as dire:

The FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) estimates that every week, somewhere in the world, two breeds of traditional livestock become extinct. Of the roughly 6500 domesticated mammals and birds covered by the World Watch List for Domestic Animal Diversity - cattle, goats, sheep, buffalo, yaks, pigs, horses, rabbits, chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, pigeons and even ostriches - one third are currently at risk of extinction.

It is a myth that the traditional livestock breeds are disappearing mainly because the newer breeds are always better producers. The decline of many old breeds can be attributed to factors as inane as government intervention (e.g. in form of support programs only open to certain breeds) or simply fashion.

Reasons for the disappearance of traditional livestock breeds:

• Undue emphasis on one specific product or trait, most often productivity, or growth performance, leading to the rapid spread of one breed of animal at the expense of others;

(A Tamworth sow may not be able to compete with the Landrace pigs often found in hog houses in terms of sheer quantity, but she will also never suffer from a condition called Pig Stress Syndrome, which leads to so-called PSE (pale, soft and exudative, meaning watery) meat and stress deaths.)

•  The focus of producers on short-term returns at the expense of longer-term social and ecological / environmental factors;

(Commercial production of egg chickens, meat chickens, and turkeys is dominated by fewer than 10 multinational breeding companies. Breed-level diversity within egg and meat-producing types is low because common breed origins and intense selection for similar production goals have promoted genetic uniformity. ) 

• Government policies that support high performance varieties, uniformity of product, and use of chemical controls through measures such as subsidies, control of access to credit, market standards, etc.; 
  

• As societies change, so do their livestock production systems. Often he idea that “modern” or “imported” is best leads to a loss of knowledge of traditional livestock husbandry practices and the value of indigenous breeds and their importance in niche adaptation.
  

• In the developing countries this is often underpinned by inappropriate foreign aid programs that favour western “improved breeds” over locally adapted livestock;

• Wars and other forms of socio-political instability can lead to livestock owners moving their stock out of their usual area, thus increasing the possibility of mixing with other breeds thereby potentially losing a location-specific breed;
  
• Natural disasters such as floods, drought or famine can result in whole breeds dying out;