The FAO Regional Office for Europe and Central Asia recently published “Breeding strategies for sustainable genetic improvement of Caucasian and Carpathian Brown cattle breeds” by C. Egger-Danner, T. Szucs and E. Raizman. The document describes an FAO project whose aim was to elaborate breeding goals and plans for breeding and breed development of Caucasian Brown cattle in Armenia and Georgia and Carpathian Brown cattle in Ukraine. As a first step, phenotypic and molecular genetic characterization, using 64 000 single nucleotide polymorphism (SNPs), of the selected breeds and description of their production environment were carried out. Breeding programmes for the breeds were then drawn up, involving use of artificial insemination for genetically superior bulls. See http://www.fao.org/documents/card/en/c/cb2380en or contact [email protected] for more information.

07/04/2021