Introduction and overview to the Special Issue on animalgenetic resources

Biodiversity conservation and sustainable use

has, for many people, become associated mainly

with issues related to plants and wild animals.

Although much less discussed, the loss of farm

animal genetic resources (AnGR) may well be

much more serious than in crops because the gene

pool is smaller and very few wild relatives remain.

The fact that 32% of livestock breeds worldwide

are at risk of becoming extinct and that the rate of

extinction continues to accelerate (FAO, 2000) is

thus a serious cause for concern. Livestock supply

some 30% of total human requirements for food

and agriculture, while 70% of the world’s rural

poor depend on livestock as an important compo-

nent of their livelihoods (LID, 1999). Animals of

different characteristics and hence outputs suit

differing local community needs. The loss of

livestock diversity seriously reduces our potential

to alleviate poverty, improve food security and

promote sustainable agriculture.

The relative lack of consideration being ac-

corded to AnGR, and the need to tackle accel-

erating loss through an improved understanding of

a broad range of issues related to AnGR con-

servation and sustainable use, motivates the pub-

lication of this collection of papers. The papers

presented here highlight the issues that those

working in the AnGR field consider critical to

improving such understanding. These are related

to, inter alia :

. the status of livestock biodiversity and the

reasons for its accelerating loss;

. strategies for the conservation and utilisation of

AnGR; and

. the role that economic analysis can play in the

design and implementation of those strategies.

Not only do these papers report recent develop-

ments in the field of AnGR, but many of them do

so within a multidisciplinary framework which has

involved the collaboration of scientists and re-

searchers from a wide range of fields. It is this

multidisciplinary approach, one that is so indis-

pensable to tackling the issues related to AnGR

conservation and sustainable use, that is one of the

strengths of this Special Issue collection of papers.

The Special Issue begins with a paper by Rege

and Gibson that provides a detailed yet non-

technical introduction to: the status of, and key

threats to, livestock genetic resources; justification

for the conservation of such resources; and poten-

tial conservation strategies and means of priority-

setting, including through the use of economic and

policy analysis decision-support tools. Anderson

then provides more detail about the importance of

livestock and livestock diversity in sustaining

livelihoods, and how such understanding is critical

to the design of strategies that aim to improve the

livelihoods of the poor. Wollny goes on to argue

that community-based management approaches

are likely to be required to play an increasingly

important role in strategies that aim to improve

food security and to alleviate poverty through the

conservation of AnGR. This is because the utilisa-

tion of indigenous livestock populations depends,

in large part, on the ability of communities to

decide on and implement appropriate breeding

strategies. Gollin and Evenson then identify further

requirements for successful conservation and sus-

tainable use of AnGR through their summary of

Ecological Economics 45 (2003) 315�/317

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relevant lessons from the plant genetic resources

field. They find that most of the important policy

questions require the kind of empirical informa-

tion (e.g. about the ‘‘uniqueness’’ of desirable

traits, conservation technologies, etc.) that is still

lacking for many areas of AnGR. Obtaining such

empirical information therefore needs to be one of

the focuses of future research. Tisdell ’s examina-

tion of the socio-economic causes of AnGR loss

provides insight into the types of policy issues that

need to be considered given the influence of

developed country livestock technologies on live-

stock populations in developing countries, to-

gether with the fact that the extension of markets

and economic globalisation accelerates the loss of

breeds and encourages the tendency to specialise.

He finds that the scope for economic forces to

contribute to breed losses is very wide, thereby

highlighting the need for empirical information of

this kind.

Following this background to AnGR issues, the

remaining papers then begin to focus on how the

fields of animal genetics, animal production and

economics can collectively provide the data and

tools necessary for understanding livestock diver-

sity, livestock-keeper breed preferences and trait

values, and the influence of different policy

factors.

Recognising the large number of indigenous

livestock breeds that are currently threatened and

the fact that not all can be saved given limited

conservation budgets, Simianer et al . develop an

analytical tool that could be used in identifying

priority breeds such that the genetic diversity

conserved can be maximised for any given level

of conservation budget.

Obtaining the data for use in such decision-

support tools and elsewhere frequently requires the

development of a number of techniques capable of

attributing values to the many unpriced inputs and

outputs of household production functions1. This

is because marginal and subsistence food produc-

tion systems dominate the peasant economies

where much of the world’s surviving AnGR

diversity can be found and in these analytical

contexts unpriced inputs are pervasive obstacles in

empirical studies. Tano et al ., Scarpa et al . [a ] and

Scarpa et al . [b ] use stated preference approaches

to value the phenotypic traits (e.g. disease toler-

ance, foraging capability, traction capacity) ex-

pressed in indigenous breeds of livestock. They

show that not only do these techniques (adapted

from other areas of environmental economic

analysis) function for AnGR research but can be

used to investigate values of genetically-deter-

mined traits currently not widely recognised in

livestock populations, but desirable candidates for

breeding or conservation programs (e.g. disease

resistance). The papers also examine how house-

hold characteristics determine differences in breed

preferences. This additional information can be of

use in designing policies that counter the present

trend towards marginalisation of indigenous

breeds. Cicia et al ., in a developed country case

study, show that a dichotomous choice contingent

valuation approach can be used to estimate the net

benefits of establishing a conservation program

and that these benefits can be substantial.

By contrast to the above stated preference

approaches, Jabbar and Diedhiou show that a

revealed preference hedonic approach can also

successfully be used to determine farmers’ breed-

ing practices and breed preferences. Policy recom-

mendations can then be drawn from the resulting

analysis.

The policy implications of AnGR research are

also highlighted by Ayalew et al . Making the case

that conventional productivity evaluation criteria

are inadequate to evaluate subsistence livestock

production, they develop an analytical model

capable of aggregating livestock functions (physi-

cal and socio-economic) into monetary values,

irrespective of whether these ‘‘products’’ are even-

tually marketed or not. Using results from a study

of Ethiopian goats, the results challenge the

prevailing notion that, firstly, crossbreds can al-

ways outperform indigenous livestock, even under

subsistence modes of production and, secondly,

that indigenous livestock breeds are unable to

adequately respond to improvements in the level

of their management.

1 A number of potential techniques were reviewed by

Drucker et al. (2001).

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Even where the value of indigenous breeds hasbeen recognised and support mechanisms imple-

mented, significant shortcomings can be identified.

Signorello and Pappalardo , in an examination of

farm animal biodiversity conservation measures

and their potential costs in the European Union

(EU), report that many breeds at risk of extinction

according the FAO World Watch List are not

covered by support payments as they do notappear in countries’ Rural Development Plans.

Furthermore, where payments are made these do

not take into account the different degrees of

extinction risk that exist between breeds and

payment levels are in any case inadequate, mean-

ing that it can still remain unprofitable to rear

indigenous breeds. EU AnGR conservation sup-

port measures thus urgently need to be reviewed ifthey are to meet their goals.

In a concluding paper, Mendelsohn draws on the

results of the previous papers and an analysis of

the economic forces influencing livestock diversity.

He argues that the primary challenge facing the

conservation of AnGR is identifying sound rea-

sons why society should preserve animals that

farmers have abandoned. Given that the marketwill preserve valuable livestock breeds, conserva-

tionists must focus on what the market will not do.

This includes identifying and quantifying the

potential social benefits of AnGR that have been

abandoned by the market. So conservationists first

must make a case for why society should be willing

to pay to protect apparently ‘‘unprofitable’’

AnGR resources and then must design conserva-

tion programs that will effectively protect whatsociety treasures.

We hope that the above collection of papers

will, by helping increase the profile of AnGR

issues and identifying further areas of research and

development, contribute even in a small way to the

overall process of AnGR conservation and sus-

tainable use.

References

Drucker, A., Gomez, V., Anderson, S., 2001. The economic

valuation of farm animal genetic resources: a survey of

available methods. Ecological Economics 36 (1), 1�/18.

FAO, 2000. World Watch List for Domestic Animal Diversity,

third ed., FAO, Rome, Italy.

LID (Livestock in Development), 1999. Livestock in poverty-

focused development. Livestock in Development, Crew-

kerne, UK.

Adam G. Drucker

International Livestock Research Institute,

PO Box 5689,

Addis Ababa,

Ethiopia

E-mail address: a.drucker@cgiar.org

Riccardo Scarpa

The Environment Department,

University of York,

Heslington, York YO10 5DD,

UK

E-mail address: rs24@york.ac.uk

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