Conservation of genetic resources of autochthonous breeds of domestic animals in Serbia

The constant increase in human population, that the world is witnessing, requires activation of all living marine resources to produce sufficient quantities of food. Throughout the last century, animal resources were promoted aiming at larger and better production of animal products. Thus, a number of highly productive breeds were created, which could show their production potential only with a good nutrition, housing and care included. New breeds that have become more dependent on man are less resistant and often unable to survive in conditions in which their predecessors lived without any problems. All this caused the disappearance of a large number of indigenous ancient primitive low-productive but mostly resistant strains and breeds of domestic animals. Depopulation of mountainous areas as well as neglect and abandonment of livestock production in marginal areas, in which a highly productive breed could not be produced, also led to the extinction of many breeds and strains of domestic animals. In livestock production the problem of preserving low-productive native breeds of domestic animals is not easy to explain, and this fact makes it difficult to work on improving the use of animal genetic resources in practice. However, agro diversity, including animal genetic resources, the new concept of sustainable use of genetic resources have an important place, taking into consideration natural resources, economic and social environment, and using the world experience. The main activities related to the management and conservation of genetic resources in the future should relate to the inclusion of new conservation technologies (primarily related to the ex situ), making publicly available database of breeders of indigenous breeds, the development of scientific research, work on human capacity building and infrastructure, promotion activities (livestock shows, fairs, publishing brochures, cooperation with the media), involvement of indigenous breeds in organic production systems, development of markets for animal products obtained from indigenous breeds with protected geographical origin, the development of agro-tourism protected areas, nature parks, continued cooperation on global and regional level.