that genetic trait for short tails, we may be able to introduce it into commercial sheep breeds, which would be a major change in the industry. It seems like there’s a theme here— a lot of the breeds SVF works with developed survival traits as a feral population. There are two main categories of breeds that we’re looking at. One is the heritage breeds, which have a kind of cool, cultural story that accompany them. These are the ones we think of as what our forefathers brought over, the cattle that gave you milk and pulled the plow and then you ate it at the end of its productive life. The other type are the ones that were feral, the island or landrace breeds. These have some of the more interesting genetic characteristics because for generations it was survival of the fittest. They had to raise their own babies, find their own food, and develop some sort of parasite or
disease resistance if they were going to survive to carry on their genetic traits. When we at SVF are trying to explain our mission to the public, two things that we like to bring up are dog breeds and the Irish potato famine. When people are confused about why there are different types of cows or different types of sheep, we talk about how there are different types of dogs. Dogs are one species, but we have developed many different breeds to suit our purposes; you would never ask a German Shepherd to do what a collie does, or vice versa. We’ve done the same thing with cows: they are adapted for different parts of the world and different jobs we need them to do. And the Irish potato famine is a good example of monoculture. Irish peasant farmers relied on one variety of potato, and when blight came through and wiped out that potato crop, millions of people starved or were displaced because they only had one variety of crop available to them.
Unfortunately, that’s the situation we are replicating with the Holstein today. We have come to rely on one very inbred type of cow to provide over 95% of all our dairy products. If we get some superbug that comes along and wipes out the Holsteins, we’re going to be in a lot of trouble, because we haven’t supported those other populations to fall back on. The Irish potato famine was caused by late blight; for cattle, do you have any idea what that superbug might be? Not at this point, but if you talk to any dairy farmer, they are very aware that the Holsteins are a susceptible population. There’s an estimated effective population of 34 individuals among the whole Holstein-Friesian population. So it’s a pretty fragile, inbred population that we’re relying on. If you look at other breeds, there may only be 400 American Milking Devon cattle left, but their genetic diversity is actually much more than the Holsteins, even though there are so many more Holsteins out there. Instead of a superbug, could it be something like skyrocketing grain prices, where it would become a problem to rely on breeds designed for grain instead of grass? Absolutely. And we’re seeing a lot more interest in these breeds as the sustainable farming movement grows. It’s no longer just a fad to have a rare breed. These smaller production breeds are really fitting into grass-based farming, going back to these types of farming that are easier on the environment. They’re not high production or high output breeds, but they usually do very well fitting into a small farm with multiple species on it or that has both crops and livestock. nnn
12 GeneWatch
January-March 2013