The secretion of sex steroid hormones by the gonads of male and female farm animals improves performance, food conversion efficiency and meat content of carcass, but can adversely affect behaviour and meat quality. In particular, androgens produced by males induce aggressive and sexual behaviour, which make it difficult to manage pubertal bulls during the finishing stage. Castration, depending on age of male, can cause temporary stress but it results in decreased productivity of 7-10%, reduced feed conversion efficiency of 3 to 5%, reduced carcass weight and increased fat deposition in the carcass. Pubertal boars and bulls also produce meat that is less desirable from the consumer’s perspective due to boar taint and toughness of bull beef. The expression of recurrent periods of transient oestrous behaviour in beef heifers following puberty and cull cows can cause managerial problems and result in up to 15% of beef heifers in US feedlots being pregnant. This causes loss of productivity and increased stress if pregnant animals remain in the feedlot. Thus, the suppression of recurrent oestrous periods in beef heifers is desirable provided performance is not compromised. Ovariectomy is difficult to perform, causes stress and reduces performance by 3-5%, while the use of progestogens to suppress oestrus is prohibited by legislation in the EU. Thus, alternative methods that are conducive to good performance, meat quality and welfare have been sought. The most promising alternative approach developed over 20 years ago is to immunocastrate animals by immunizing them against gonadotrophin releasing hormone (GnRH), thereby suppressing LH and FSH secretion. This causes temporary anoestrus in females or reduced androgen secretion, testes size and aggression in males.

Legislators in Europe have moved to prohibit the use of growth-promoting antibiotics in animal feeds from the end of 2005. This decision was based on public and political concerns that the heavy use of antibiotics in general can give rise to transmissible resistance factors which can compromise the potency of therapeutic antibiotics in man. Growth promotion was a clearly avoidable use. Thus, alternative means are being sought to modify ruminal fermentation to benefit production efficiency and product quality. Natural plant products offer a wide range of potential as manipulating agents.

The twentieth century has seen the emergence of chemotherapy, which has represented one of the most powerful tools to fight pathogenic agents as various as bacteria, fungi and protozoan or metazoan parasites both in the field of human and veterinary medicine. However, at the beginning of this new century, it is obvious that chemical treatments are now facing limitations. The case of gastrointestinal nematode of ruminants (GIN), has been chosen as an illustration of this novel situation and consequently, the enforced “evolution” in methods of disease control. Gastrointestinal parasitism remains a main pathological constraint associated with the breeding of ruminants. The usual mode of control of these diseases is represented by the repeated use of anthelmintics (AH) to maintain parasitism under a level that does not penalise animal health and welfare and comprises with objectives of production. However, this quasi exclusive reliance on chemotherapy is nowadays strongly questioned by the constant and widespread diffusion of AH resistance in nematode populations. The increasing concern of consumers on the use of chemicals in farm industry and for animal welfare has also been considered since it leads to a strengthened regulation on the use of treatments in farm animals and to a renewed interest for less intensive systems of production, such as organic farming. These various reasons explain the current demand for alternative methods to complement or replace chemotherapy. Such methods can be classified according to 3 principles.

Recent concern about farm animal welfare has centred on the impact of intensive environments and management practices on the animal. For instance, there has been much concern over the use of close confinement systems (e.g. battery cages or sow stalls) and the perceived negative outcomes of these, including development of abnormal behaviour, stress and resulting physical disease or poor health. However, this emphasis on the physical environment is changing, with greater consideration now being given to animal factors and in particular the selective breeding of farm animals. This is partly because of the growing understanding that genetic selection narrowly focused on production traits may be as significant a factor affecting welfare as the systems in which we manage our farm animals (see Lawrence et al (2004) for a more comprehensive review). However, it is important to note that reduced welfare is not a necessary consequence of selective breeding, and indeed animal breeding may have potential to enhance welfare (e.g. Jones and Hocking, 1999). In this paper we use examples from our own research on dairy cattle, sheep and pigs to illustrate positive and practical contributions that selective breeding can make to reducing welfare problems by creating more balanced breeding programmes or providing tools to address welfare problems.

There are many changing demands from consumers, retailers and producers affecting selection decisions in meat-type chickens. The most important changes in demand, especially in Europe, have been to improve (1) food safety (2) poultry health and welfare and (3) the environmental impact of chicken production.

The contribution of the breeding company to improved food safety has been to exclude human and/or chicken pathogens from the stock delivered. This has been achieved by pathogen eradication and substantial investments in biosecurity. For instance, it is now expected that breeding stock will be delivered free of all Salmonella species. Actions to eradicate all Salmonella species from elite breeding stock have succeeded. We have made substantial investment in biosecurity and surveillance so that the risk of challenge is reduced and any new challenge is quickly detected and eradicated.

The art of animal breeding has rapidly advanced into an exacting science including such advanced tools as Best Linear Unbiased Prediction (BLUP) and REML estimation of variance components. Unfortunately in most selection programs impacts of animal behavior are not considered, as a result those breeding programs ignore traits that may negatively impact animal welfare. The threats of ignoring animal welfare in breeding programs are three fold: first, if higher producing animals tend to be more competitive, then the effect of selection is to increase competition, which worsens animal’s welfare; second, increased competition has the effect of lowering productivity of other animals that are in direct contention, thus resulting in reduced (or negative) gains for productivity; third, genotype-genotype interactions (competition) invalidates the traditional BLUP animal model and negates many advantages of this technology and could in fact make it a liability. These threats can be addressed through alternative breeding programs.

In today’s global climate of consumer preferences or legislation for reduced antibiotic use in animal production, genetic approaches to health provide a natural and sustainable method to help ensure the wholesomeness of the food supply. The tools of molecular genetics have recently enabled the search for molecular genetic markers for health (Lamont, 1994, 1998). Although there are a few notable examples of health traits controlled by single genes, the vast majority of health traits are controlled by multiple genes.

Campylobacter spp. are commonly isolated from commercial poultry flocks. Data from recent FSA-funded UK research indicate that approximately 60% of housed (broiler) poultry flocks are campylobacter-positive at slaughter age. This will vary from company to company and from farmer to farmer. Data suggest that this may be non-random variation, with consistent patterns observed. Evidence from companies, who collaborate with the Bristol Food Safety Group, is increasingly suggesting that some farmers find it easier to protect their birds from colonisation with Campylobacter spp than others. There are a number of possible reasons for this, which may also be interrelated.

An estimated 1.96 billion people rely on livestock to supply part or their entire daily needs. Socio-political, economic and agroecological determinants are leading to dramatic genetic erosion in animal genetic resources (AnGR) important to the livelihoods of many of the world’s poor (Anderson, 2003). The poor need AnGR suitable for their purposes. Genotype-environment interactions mean that animals bred for intensive production systems are often not appropriate for the production systems the poor utilise (Anderson, forthcoming). In addition, there is significant option value for society of the AnGR kept by the poor (Drucker et al, 2001). There are important genetic and socio-economic reasons why AnGR should be conserved ‘in-situ’. Adaptive traits are best maintained through processes of natural selection brought about by exposing AnGR to changes in local environments. A greater set of benefits should accrue to those directly involved in the conservation activities.

Recall the primary purpose of farmers using animal species: to supply product, in response to human demand for a broad range of food and other services. 21 billion animals of some 2400 breeds across 30 animal species account for more than 30 percent of the total value of global food and agriculture (FAO-UNEP. 2000), with demand for animal products projected to double by 2020 (Delgardo et al. 1999). The animal attributes of product quantity and compositional quality, together with a number of biosecurity issues, a mix and timing of outputs with available inputs, and the market increasingly impact farmers’ returns and challenge their ability to manage risk and sustain production.

Livestock genetic diversity has both a public and private value, yet little work has been done to measure this concept in economic terms. The presentation outlines the main challenges facing applied and theoretical economists in the study of genetic diversity in livestock production systems. It surveys basic economic principles such as the marginal value of an increase in genetic diversity, and its cost of conservation in the market environment. Market-driven devices for increasing consumer’s awareness of, and willingness-to-pay for livestock diversity are investigated.

With the publication of the UK Country Report to the FAO on Farm Animal Genetic Resources in 2002, UK Government recognised that national Farm Animal Genetic Resources (FAnGR) includes two main groups – Mainstream Breeds and Breeds at Risk. Within Breeds at Risk, two distinct components have emerged: a) those breeds that are locally adapted and/or distinctive but not numerically scarce, and b) those which are rare and therefore in need of more urgent conservation action. In the UK, the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST) administers native rare breed conservation in association with the relevant breed societies and individual owners. The RBST is a registered charity and membership organisation, established in 1973 as an extension of a working party formed in 1968 by the Royal Agricultural Society of England and the Zoological Society of London to save endangered breeds of UK livestock. Previously, no formal support or recognition structure existed for native breeds of farm animal in danger of extinction, and at least 20 native breeds had vanished during the 20th century as a result. In the last thirty years the work of the RBST has successfully ensured that no further extinctions have occurred, but now some real opportunities for expansion of its traditional conservation activities exist. Through publication of the Country Report, the UK now formally recognises 24 rare cattle breeds, 2 rare goat breeds, 8 rare pig breeds, 36 rare sheep breeds, 17 rare equine breeds and 9 rare poultry breeds, and with a number of national strategies emerging to coincide with EU agricultural reform, an opportunity exists to reassess needs and priorities in several main areas for this valuable component of UK FAnGR.

As a plant scientist and curator of plant genetic resources (PGR), my mission is the conservation, management, characterisation and promotion and subsequent utilisation of these resources. The public ex-situ collections under my charge are seed collections of arable crops and their wild relatives. These include the BBSRC Small Grain Cereal Collections and the JI Pisum Collection (GRU). Seeds are stored under medium term storage conditions of 1.50C and 10%RH. The collections are based at a research institute where they benefit from being integrated into a range of applied and fundamental projects. My job combines curation and active research associated with the collections and entails extensive collaborations across a range of stakeholder groups which include, commercial breeders, farmers and growers, museum curators, archeologists, schools to exhibition and agricultural show organisers. Clearly no collection works alone. PGR collections in the UK are decentralised around different institutions, each of which is involved in European PGR networks through which regional initiatives and responsibilities to international agreements are coordinated.