The use of reproductive Technologies in Peru, its impact in the livestock industry development, challenges to confront

The use of reproductive technologies in the reproduction of the domestic animals has different objectives, between the most important uses are the prevention of diseases transmitted via natural mating, the optimization of the reproductive management, the more economic interchange of genetic material, the development of more efficient animal production systems, the generation of offspring with predetermined sex and genetic composition according to market requirements, the conservation of genetic resources and the increment of the rate of genetic gain in the animal populations; being this last application the one that has the most frequent and important usage and the most significant impact in the animal production industry. The importance of the reproductive technologies in animal improvement is because it allows us to achieve a significant increment in the reproductive rate of selected individuals (to get the maximum number of offspring per breeding animal), this makes possible to obtain high intensity and precision of selection and at the earliest age possible (reducing generation interval) resulting in the highest genetic gain per unit of time. From all the reproductive technologies developed, the artificial insemination (AI) in cattle is the most widely used technology globally and at national level in Peru, followed by the embryo transfer (ET) in cattle and by the AI and ET in sheep. From the design and usage of the in vitro embryo production and methodologies for the embryo micromanipulation it has started the development of a series of advanced reproductive technologies from a simple embryo bisection up to cloning of individuals, reproduction using stem cells and production of quimeras with cells genetically modified. In Peru is only in the last decade that the research and development and commercial application of reproductive technologies in the livestock reproduction has started with some advances in in vitro embryo production, embryo transfer, animal cloning, etc. with visible impact in the animal production industry and generating many challenges in order to increase its efficiencies and achieve its commercial use.