IFAJ 45^th Annual Congress 8-13 September 2001, Savonlinna, Finland

New Possibilities in Animal Breeding

Dr. Jarmo Juga

Director, cattle breeding

Finnish Animal Breeding Association

Meeting the demand for high quality nutrients by an increasing human population while taking into account the environmental problems caused by intensive and extensive agriculture, limited energy resources, animal welfare issues and short term economic competition on the world market requires a new approach to the modelling of entire systems. This modelling approach should in turn be used to define long term breeding goals for future animal production to better adapt the genetic resources for sustainable food production. Sustainability criteria must apply to each and every step of the production chain, from breeding objectives to animal nutrition and management, and finally to food processing.

The aim of the national breeding program is to improve the economic efficiency of animal production by genetic progression in economically important traits. A successful breeding program consists of many aspects which must be considered, namely defining the breeding goal, recording schemes, predicting breeding values (BV), and selecting animals and mating strategies. Modern animal breeding combines quantitative and molecular genetics in both the evaluation of the animals’ genetic merit and reproducing replacement animals from genetically superior parents.

Genetic evaluation is a powerful tool for selection of animals. The BLUP animal model is currently the method of choice for calculating breeding values with high degree of accuracy. Increased computing power enables the use of complicated multiple trait models, one of which is a test day model, where information for a single test day is used rather than full lactation information. A new model in the genetic evaluation of dairy cattle is transnational comparison, which provides more accuracy in the import and export of superior semen, embryos and live animals and joint breeding programs between countries. Currently INTERBULL run international evaluations on yield traits, conformation, somatic cell count and mastitis, but the number of traits should be increased as soon as possible. In addition to this, the prediction of breeding values using an international animal model should be initiated, at least on production traits that will also enable accurate cow selection across populations. A joint evaluation system between Nordic countries is already under development.

Both artificial insemination and embryo transfer are commonly accepted and used in animal breeding, although embryo technologies are developing very fast. These technologies include ovum pick up, in vitro fertilisation, embryo splitting, embryo sexing and cloning. The first successful sheep clone from an adult cell raised a lot of debate, but cloning as such is not a breeding tool. It could be used in producing commercial phenotypes from centralised nucleus schemes, but most likely cloning will be used in copying transgenic animals for pharmaceutical use. Gene transfer technologies are far too immature to be used in animal breeding and consumer attitudes in Europe are too cautious for such technologies.

Gene mapping provides new information for use in selection as the distances between markers and QTL get shorter via fine mapping. This information can even be utilised with embryos and young animals, which have no production information at this stage. Early information shortens the generation interval, thus accelerating genetic progress.

In a large breeding population the reduction of genetic variance due to selection is not a severe problem if effective population size is kept large enough. But, the reduction in fitness traits can be considerable due to inbreeding depression or a negatively correlated response to artificial selection. To prevent a reduction in fitness, the long term selection response should be maximised by limiting the increase in inbreeding rate through restrictions placed on the effective population size. Since the current trend in all Nordic countries shows a decrease in the number of dairy cows, the most effective way of restricting a reduction in effective population size would be to increase co-operation between countries.

Genetic resources are among the most valuable and strategically important assets that a country holds. Most countries have indigenous animal species and breeds that could potentially contribute to improved food and agriculture production. It also facilitates the enhancement of food safety and fulfils broader human and economic needs. FAO co-ordinates a country-driven process for the preparation of the first Report on the State of the World’s (SoW) Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture. Development of this report will require a substantial effort and input from individual countries

The SoW report is expected to provide a foundation for setting national, regional and global priorities as well as assistance in maintaining and enhancing the contribution of animal genetic resources to food and agriculture. The most important objective of the State of the World process is to develop national capacities and promote regional and international co-operation for sustainable intensification of livestock production systems at the national level. The SoW process will enhance the wise use and development of locally adapted animal genetic resources, while taking into consideration the constraints and opportunities of a country’s livestock sector affected by growing food demands, changing climate, disease status and technologies.

Jarmo Juga

Ph.D. Animal Sciences 1993, University of Helsinki, Docent in Animal Sciences

Director, cattle breeding, Finnish Animal Breeding Association

Board member of Alkiokeskus Oy

Board member of INTERBULL, ICAR task force chairman, member of Nordic evaluation association management group

Served as a consultant in the following organisations: MMM, TEKES, FAO, EU, Finnish Cultural Foundation

Tens of articles published in scientific journals, over 100 articles published in popular literature, textbook author, ADP teaching programme, consulted on and graded doctoral and masters theses, served in management groups for several research projects.