Agricultural Biodiversity Weblog
Agrobiodiversity is crops, livestock, foodways, microbes, pollinators, wild relatives …
Snapped on a bus this morning. See the animal there on the left? Does it look like a sheep to you? Does cashmere come from sheep? Would you buy “cashmere” from a manufacturer that doesn’t know what animal produces cashmere? Not even at a 50% discount?
Juha Kantanen, a research scientist at MTT Agrifood Research Finland, had an announcement out on the DAD-Net discussion forum a couple of days ago which reproduced an MTT press release on what sounds like a fascinating book, Sakha Ynaga — Cattle of the Yakuts.
Siberia’s last remaining indigenous breed of domestic cattle, the Sakha Ynaga, or Yakutian cattle, inhabit the lands surrounding the Lena River in Russia’s remote Sakha Republic (Yakutia). During the soviet era, the Yakutian cattle were driven to virtual extinction, but thanks to dogged preservation efforts this remarkable, hardy breed has endured to the present day.
A multidisciplinary team of researchers from MTT Agrifood Research Finland and the University of Helsinki’s Aleksanteri Institute explored the genetic uniqueness of the Yakutian cattle and the effect of social and cultural factors on the survival of the breed through periods of major upheaval in Russia’s history. The findings of this insightful study have now been published in the book Sakha Ynaga — Cattle of the Yakuts. The book champions the call for preservation of biodiversity, at a time when countless indigenous breeds around the world are facing the brink of extinction.
The book can be ordered from Bookstore Tiedekirja.
The “Livestock based Geographical Indication chains as an entry point to maintain agrobiodiversity” Expert Meeting will be the third in the serious of events that FAO have recently organized in order to raise awareness about the importance of traditional products and their role in agriculture and rural development and agro-biodiversity preservation. The Budapest Expert meeting together with the South-East Europe Technical Seminar “Quality Food Products linked to Geographical Origin and Traditions” hold in Belgrade, Serbia in December 2008 and the Technical Forum “Geographical Indication and its contribution to Food Security” hold at the Berlin Forum International Green Week in January 2009, have the objective to constitute an important knowledge base for practitioners, scientists and decision and policy makers for their work related to geographical indications and rural development.