Conservation for Fun and Profit
Heritage meats, cloned pigs, and heirloom tomatoes
"Dear, I want to raise sheep," is the way Robyn Shotwell Metcalfe, a former editor with Sunset magazine, informed her husband a few years ago of her new interest in raising rare domestic animals. Thus were sown the seeds of the Kelmscott Rare Breeds Foundation. While living in Silicon Valley, Metcalfe acquired five Cotswold ewes and one Cotswold ram to begin her flock in the early 1990s. She later moved her flocks and herds to a 146-acre farm near Lincolnville, Maine.
Cotswold sheep are a long-haired variety from England. Their wool once was considered so valuable to the British economy that even today the Lord Chancellor sits on a hassock filled with Cotswold wool. The variety's current population numbers about 2,700 worldwide.
The Kelmscott Farm is actively engaged in conserving through breeding 10 rare varieties of sheep, pigs, cattle, horses, and poultry. The Kelmscott Foundation runs on an annual budget of $550,000 and receives support from more than 300 members, of whom 277 have "adopted" specific animals. Robyn Shotwell Metcalfe spends a great deal of time educating the public about the value of such rare breeds. She persuades farmers of their value and works to create markets for their unique products. For example, she has persuaded chefs at several fancy restaurants in Boston and New York to serve "heritage meats" and highlight them on their menus.
Why are some domestic breeds in danger of disappearing? Consider Kerry cattle. By the 1980s, there were fewer than 200 of this breed of Irish dairy cow left. The breed's ancestors were brought to Ireland around 2000 B.C. and were imported into the U.S. in the early 1800s. Their numbers declined mainly because of competition from other breeds. Kerry cows produce less than 10,000 pounds of milk annually, while modern Holsteins produce over 20,000 pounds, with some champions producing nearly 70,000.
Something similar happened to other now-rare breeds: Competing varieties were simply more efficient. Given the advent of the tractor, it is no surprise that the numbers of various draft horse breeds also have plummeted. Turkey breeds likewise are being out-competed in the marketplace. Modern turkeys have been bred to develop enormous breasts. However tasty, huge breasts present a problem for the turkeys: They make the joining of male and female very difficult. Consequently, most of the turkeys that grace our Thanksgiving tables are produced via artificial insemination. Kelmscott is preserving the critically endangered Narragansett turkey, which can do what comes naturally without human assistance.
Metcalfe is not afraid to use modern science in her quest to save varieties from extinction. Kelmscott is preserving Gloucester Old Spots pigs, of which only five bloodlines continue. So few bloodlines means the variety risks the genetic problems that come with inbreeding. To save one genetic line of this breed, Kelmscott turned to cloning. The farm took cells from the ears of an old sow named Princess who was past her breeding prime and sent them to the biotech company Infigen in Wisconsin. Infigen extracted Princess' DNA, put it into enucleated eggs taken from another swine variety, and inserted the eggs into the womb of a common Yorkshire sow. Two healthy cloned piglets that are genetically identical to Princess were born in April, thus maintaining wider genetic diversity among the remaining Gloucester Old Spots. This cloning success strongly suggests that one high-tech way to preserve old breeds would be to take and bank frozen cells that can later be used to recreate lost varieties.
Metcalfe is just one of thousands of people around the world who are devoted to the private conservation of domestic varieties of animals and plants from extinction. Aside from farm animals, thousands of people and hundreds of private organizations, both nonprofit and for-profit, are working to preserve and propagate heirloom varieties of plants. The Abundant Life Seed Foundation has been saving, propagating, and selling heirloom seeds since 1975. The foundation's catalog offers hundreds of varieties of heirloom vegetables, including Bull's Heart and Dixie Golden Giant tomatoes, Shoepeg and Golden Midget sweet corn, and Aztec Red Kidney and Clem & Sarah's Big beans.
Why go to all the trouble of cloning ugly pigs or saving odd seeds? After all, modern agriculture using commercial varieties has proven itself more than capable of supplying the world with food. "It's about passion," says Metcalfe.
Human beings treasure what is rare. Our inclinations toward the unusual distinguish us from our fellows. An increasingly wealthy society can afford to turn what was once deadly serious business, growing food, into a hobby.
This private passion benefits the rest of us too. Breed saving and seed saving offer more than just aesthetic pleasures. Each variety preserves unique genes that may one day be useful to commercial breeders, such as genes for disease and pest resistance or genes for thriving in diverse environments. For instance, heirloom varieties of corn could harbor genes for resistance to many pathogens that could bolster commercial varieties in the future. The Southern Corn Leaf Blight, for example, cut U.S. corn production by 15 percent in 1970. The blight was so devastating because the fungus could take advantage of a genetic uniformity found in 80 percent of the hybrid corn planted that year. In addition, rare breeds and seeds may offer farmers economic opportunities as gourmandizing spreads to wealthier consumers who begin to demand more diversity in the foods they eat.
The thousands of crop and domestic animal breeds in the world today were brought into existence by the private efforts of farmers and herdsmen through the ages. Individual people following their private passions are still the best way to preserve these varieties for future generations.
