A Rare Breed: Why Oddball Animals Matter in the World of Sustainable Food

The few weeks ago, I listened to an interview. The interview was with a woman who had given up her job as a university professor and had become a farmer. Instead of studying the demise of rare animals, she was now fostering the survival of these rare breeds. The world of sustainable food seems to be populated with a strange mix of family farmers and activists, those who have moved from being entranced with organic, sustainable and heritage breeds into growing these plants and animals for their life's work.

Yesterday, my daughter received her monthly nature magazine. At the front of each magazine is the part that I liked best as a child: a "who's that?" photo of an animal that the average North American or European child has never seen. In fact, since many of these animals are endangered or very specific to one area of the world, most of the planet's children have never seen them. The animal of the month was one that looked like a cross between a big-eyed deer and an elephant. I found it intriguing, to be sure.

Aside from being intriguing, what's to be gained by saving rare breeds of farm animals? Well, diversity, for one. You may have heard the story of the banana: grown by farmers around the world, the banana that the world grows is under threat from a disease that could decimate crops of the Royal Cavendish banana. By virtue of their popularity, popular farm animals and plants can be susceptible to disease and to the decimation of the food supply.

Diversity is also useful when you consider the future of agriculture. Most of us live in cities, and while cities are probably not the first place you consider when you think of farms, the urban farm and the urban dairy, egg, or meat farm is growing in popularity, partially out of necessity, since farmers pushed into the cities of the world struggle to feed their families. Some breeds of animals are well-suited for cities. Since I am not a huge fan of goats, my favorite is the tiny, tiny cow. While North American dairy cows are big and sturdy and well-suited for mass milk production, they are huge. Little heritage breeds of cows can live on small meals of grass in urban and suburban areas and are the ideal size to produce milk for a family.

Like plants, rare and heritage breeds of animals are more than our history. Their genes are a valuable addition to the animal gene pool. Rare chickens may not lay golden eggs, but they may be hardy, easy to care for, or excellent layers. Keeping these rare breeds adds to the resilience in our food and on our farms, and that is a good thing indeed.