Genetic material from some of Canada’s rarest and most commercially valuable livestock and poultry breeds will soon be collected, frozen and stored at the University of Saskatchewan, thanks to a new genetic preservation initiative being funded by Agriculture Canada.
The Canadian Animal and Poultry Genetic Resources Initiative will gather semen, embryos and other genetic resources from livestock and poultry breeds and store the material in a high-tech, cryogenic gene bank located on the U of S campus in Saskatoon.
Agriculture Canada has committed more than $1 million to the initiative. The money will buy specialized equipment for the gene bank, fund research into new storage procedures and help cover salaries and start-up costs.
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Ken Richards, research manager of Canadian genetic resources program, said the goal of the initiative is to preserve genetic material from all livestock species produced in Canada, including beef and dairy cattle, swine, horses, sheep, goats, alpacas, llamas, chickens, turkeys, ducks and geese.
Within those species, the bank will attempt to gather material from as many breeds as possible to ensure that genes from all commercially viable breeds are preserved for future use.
“There’s been an increasing concern, not only in Canada but also internationally, that the diversity of livestock species has been significantly decreasing over the years,” Richards said.
“Animal breeders have been breeding for very specific traits such as increased meat quality … and through the selection process, the genetic diversity has become narrower and narrower.
“Some breeds may be very much in favour among commercial producers today but they may fall out of favour in the future, so it’s very important to get that material collected and preserved right now.”
The move to establish a national livestock gene bank has been in the works for several years but until now, the task of preserving livestock genetics has fallen on commercial livestock producers and a small but dedicated group of hobby farmers and livestock conservationists.
Roy Crawford, a retired animal and poultry geneticist from Clavet, Sask., has been preserving rare breeds for more than 30 years.
In the early 1970s, he adopted a flock of Hungarian Yellow chickens, a breed that was common among poultry producers in Hungary at the time.
By the mid-1980s, poultry farmers in Hungary had abandoned the Hungarian Yellow and switched to new, more productive breeds.
As a result, Crawford’s birds were the only known flock of purebred Hungarian Yellows left in the world.
Crawford, a longtime member of Rare Breeds Canada, an organization dedicated to preserving heritage livestock, said the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization has been exerting pressure on UN member nations to establish national livestock gene banks.
The formation of such a facility in Canada is long overdue, he said.
“The actual job of conserving stocks in Canada has been talked about for a long time but it has always fallen in the hands of the hobbyists or grassroots conservationists,” Crawford said. “If I can speak on behalf of those people, we’re delighted that this initiative is going ahead.”
Cryogenic preservation techniques are widely used among commercial cattle producers, but similar techniques have not been developed for other livestock species.
For that reason, grassroots conservationists will still have an important role to play in preserving Canadian livestock breeds, Crawford said.
The establishment of a national gene bank will also take pressure off backyard conservationists, many of whom use their own money to acquire and maintain their flocks and herds.
Ted Lawrence, the chair of Rare Breeds Canada, also welcomed the initiative but expressed concerns about the way it will be administered.
Lawrence said members of Rare Breeds Canada and directors of the Canadian Farm Animal Genetic Resource Foundation, another livestock conservation group, were instrumental in convincing Agriculture Canada that a national gene bank was needed.
“The fact that Canada has established a program is great but … as stakeholders, we haven’t been told what the goal of the program is, how they plan to accomplish those goals or how they are going to manage the program.”
Richards said organizers of the new initiative will work closely with grassroots stakeholders to ensure that relevant genetic material is protected.
He said the gene bank will not be guided by a board of directors but will use guidelines provided by Agriculture Canada to determine which breeds are included and which are not.
“We’re going to be working with Rare Breeds Canada to slowly acquire some of their material and to get it duplicated and backed up in cryogenic storage.”
Richards said rare but uniquely Canadian breeds such as the Canadienne cow, the Newfoundland pony and the Lacombe pig would be shoo-ins, as would lesser-known breeds that are still produced commercially.
“If (a breed) is in commercial use in Canada, then we would be interested in acquiring genetic material. If a breed really isn’t in commercial production, then we may not be that interested in it,” Richards said.
The College of Agriculture and the Western College of Veterinary Medicine at the U of S will serve as the hub of the new initiative.
The college and the WCVM will also be developing a new graduate program that focuses on the conservation of animal genetic resources, said associate dean of agriculture Graham Scoles.
The graduate program will be the first of its kind in North America.
