Greendays - Heritage Livestock Breeds
Steve Scher
01/22/2008 at 10:00 a.m.
People have been breeding domestic animals for thousands of years and they've come up with some pretty useful varieties. Now; that diversity is being lost. The threats are familiar; globalization, mass production, corporate agriculture. World Watch Institute reports that two breeds, valuable for their domestic diversity, are lost each week. In the past 100 years, 1000 livestock breeds have been gone extinct. 6500 remain. Local farmers and hobbyists have stepped into the breach, breeding heritage chickens and ducks and sheep for the good of humankind. What breeds are you trying to save? How can you get involved? Do you even want some rare breed of chicken running around your backyard? Saving rare breeds of domestic livestock on the next Weekday.
Guests:
Maria Castro runs Quennell Lake Poultry and is a member of Rare Breeds Canada.
Gary Fisher owns and operates Camelot Farms, where he breeds colonial era chickens, ducks and sheep.
Don Schrieder is Communication Director for the American Livestock Breeds Conservancy. He joins us from Pittsboro, North Carolina.
