Breed Society Forum 2016

Date: 5th May 2016

Location: The Nags Head Tavern, Thornfalcon, Taunton, Somerset, TA3 5NW

With so many sheep breeds, crosses and composites in the UK, NSA feels an effective information network for the numerous societies is essential. That is the reason behind the annual NSA Breed Society Forum, held in Somerset in May this year, followed by a farm walk just over the border in Devon.

The theme for the meeting was ‘Solutions to old and new sheep sector challenges’, with updates on maedi visna and bluetongue showing the range between well-known and emerging problems. Updates on industry trends and NSA activity were provided by Joseph Keating of AHDB and Phil Stocker of NSA respectively, while a large chunk of the day looked at the role of breed societies in protecting and promoting genetics. 

Amanda Carson of the Animal and Plant Health Agency (APHA), who is also involved in the Farm Animal Genetic Resources (FAnGR) committee and the Herdwick Sheep Breeders’ Association, kicked this off by explaining how the Government would consider sparing certain groups of animals in the result of a diseaserelated cull, such as for foot-and-mouth. Rare breeds, scientific research animals, animals in education centres, and animals of breeding interest could be protected by putting a code of practice in place.

Tom Blunt of the Rare Breeds Survival Trust continued by presenting work being done by RBST, NSA and others to combine the Ovine Semen Archive with other stores to create a national gene bank. He explained that such a bank would safeguard breeds, gain security from disease threats, protect future generations, recreate lost breeds, create new breeding lines (conservation breeding) and store genetics that might otherwise be lost through breeding trends changing direction.

The Ovine Semen Archive is the industry-owned archive created when Defra signed over genetics collected as part of the National Scrapie Plan, so an important step is to assess the value and streamline what is in store. Mr Blunt said work had already started on this and the breeds with semen in the bank would be contacted before any decisions were made. Future steps would be assessing other stocks held by societies and groups, and collecting more genetics where needed. This would include embryos, which Mr Blunt said was an area RBST was increasing its activity in. 

Preservation and registration of genetics is on the radar of the EU as well as groups within the UK, and forthcoming changes to EU zootechnical rules was something Marcus Bates of the British Pig Association joined the meeting to discuss. Declaring his non-sheep role from the outset, he explained zootechnics are for all livestock species and, although they sounded complex, were something breed societies needed to get their heads around.

The main aim of the zootechnical legislation was to facilitate trade of breeding animals between member states but, despite having the largest sheep population, the UK only has 29 recognised breed societies compared to 43 in Spain and 64 in Italy. It was agreed NSA would pick this up and provide a simplified interpretation of the legislation to help breed societies understand and engage with it.

Download an agenda for the forum below. NSA-affiliated breed societies can read a full report and download copies of presentations in the members-only area of the NSA website. 

The forum involved presentations from a range of speakers.
The forum involved presentations from a range of speakers.
A farm walk followed, by kind permission of the Derryman family.
A farm walk followed, by kind permission of the Derryman family.