Support urgently needed to save rare farm breeds
The latest survey on farm livestock has revealed that a number of iconic UK breeds are at crisis point, with animals that have been around since Viking times now in danger of being lost from the British landscape forever.
According to the Rare Breeds Survival Trust (RBST), which is the only UK charity dedicated to monitoring, preserving and promoting rare breed farm animals and horses, the breeds most at risk in 2018 include British Landrace pigs, British Lop pigs, Suffolk Horse and Cleveland Bay Horse.
According to the RBST survey, there are only 64 Cleveland Bay breeding mares, 80 Suffolk Horse breeding mares, 138 British Landrace sows and 161 British Lop sows.
These breeds have all been placed on the RBST “red list”, with Tom Beeston, chief executive of RBST, predicting: “These rare breed animals are going to end up as dead as a Dodo unless their numbers increase dramatically. We are calling on government bodies and consumers to support our work.
“We need more than £10 million in the next decade to pay for our gene bank, where genetic material is stored so that we can recreate a breed, a bit like the film Jurassic Park.”
Beeston said it was ironic that rare breed heavy horses such as Suffolk, Clydesdales and Shires that were the main power units on farms in the early years of last century and which were “called up” during the First and Second World Wars to pull gun carriages were now in danger of dying out forever.
“During the wars, over a million of these horses were used by the army. Farmers don’t use Clydesdale, Shire and Suffolk horses for ploughing anymore because 99.9 per cent of farms use tractors. Action is desperately needed to breed more of these heavy horses.”
While some rare pig breeds like the Gloucestershire Old Spots and Tamworth now feature on gastro-pub menus, the RBST believes it’s very important for consumers to ask for these rare breed animals when they go out to eat. “Although it might sound odd we want more people to eat rare breed meat to drive demand for the animals.”
One breed staging a recovery due to its superior eating quality are Highland Cattle. The breed used to be on the danger list in the 1970s, but it is now considered great meat and is popular with consumers. “That is a good thing, because the more people that eat rare breed meat, the greater the demand and the more animals will be bred,” said Beeston
Of greatest concern to RBST are Vaynol cattle with only a dozen breeding cows. There are three herds of these semi feral white cattle – one in Scotland.