Science Snacks: Conservation contracts for supplying Farm Animal Genetic Resources (FAnGR)

Paper Title: Conservation contracts for supplying Farm Animal Genetic Resources (FAnGR) conservation services in Romania

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Paper Summary:

Transylvania in Romania’s Central Region has many small-scale and extensive farm systems that are threatened by changing policies. An experiment was conducted to explore farmer’s preferences for conservation agreements to conserve rare breeds of livestock, to work out what kind of agreement would be most attractive to them. The conservation contracts varied in their length, whether they were community or individually managed, and the support available. The results suggest 89% of respondents would be willing to farm with rare breeds. 40% of farmers were reportedly farming with endangered breeds, however, only 8% would qualify for funding support under current requirements. The results estimate that the minimum annual compensation values are €167 (for cattle) and €7 (for sheep) for farmers to consider enrolling. These values are comparable to Romanian Rural Development Programme (RDP) support offered to farmers keeping rare breeds. This suggests that rare breed conservation contracts are considered attractive by Romanian farmers, and that meeting their preferences for non-monetary contractual factors will increase participation and thus increase rare livestock breed conservation.

Authors: Warwick Wainwright, Klaus Glenk, Faical Akaichi, Dominic Moranc

Journal: Livestock Science

Year: 2019

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