The high amount of land used for cultivation and livestock farming has dramatically shaped landscapes in Europe and throughout the rest of the world. Agriculture is a fundamental human activity that intrinsically depends on nature and at the same time poses a threat to it. Thus, sustainability has emerged as a necessity in future agricultural policy and practice.
This publication is the result of the International Conference held in Frankfurt, Germany 14-16 June 2011 organized in the framework of an International UN Project funded by IFAD “Reinforcing the resilience of poor rural communities in the face of food insecurity, poverty and climate change through on-farm conservation of local agrobiodiversity”.
Conservation of animal genetic resources -- ensuring that these valuable resources remain available for future use by livestock breeders -- is one of the four strategic priority areas of the Global Plan of Action for Animal Genetic Resources, which was adopted in 2007 and is the first internationally agreed framework for the management of biodiversity in the livestock sector. These guidelines focus on conservation "in vivo", i.e. maintaining live populations rather than storing frozen genetic material.
