Animal genetic resources for the twenty-first century

Genetic resources of the species of animals of interest to farmers underpin both immediate and longer term food and agricultural production and the cr itical sustainable intensification of this throughout the world's broad ran ge of available production environments. The current state of these now ess entially irreplaceable genetic resources is the result of up to 12 millenni a of domestication processes, together with the more abrupt activity during the twentieth century. Key influences are summarized, as are the present a nd future developments by humans that are likely to impact on the character ization, use and development, conservation and access to those remaining re sources. The imperatives for their management by wise use, together with a mechanism being developed to assist countries and all stakeholders to reali ze these imperatives, are outlined. The need for this sustainable intensifi cation for at least the next century will focus the genetic resource manage ment effort on understanding the nature of the Earth's primary production e nvironments and on the use and development of resources that are already ad apted to particular environments. The interests of all peoples will be best served by particular immediate action in the lower input, higher stress ag ro-ecosystems, which currently account for the majority of the world's farm animal genetic resources and the majority now at risk, together with provi ding the majority of food and agriculture now and continuing to do so throu ghout the twenty-first century. It is these lower input, higher stress prod uction environments and their associated adapted animal genetic resources t hat now pose the major issues for research, training and development associ ated with utilizing the farm animal gene pool.