A review of the status of the native cattle and its conservation strategies in Iran

Animal genetic resources are playing a vital role in ensuring food security and maintaining genetic diversity. Iran has a variety of livestock genetic resources and So far there are about 8.44 million registered cows. The number of native cattle is 2044000 head, which accounts for about 27% of the animal population. These breeds are adapted to different climatic conditions of Iran and their genetic diversity is due to their domestication process over the centuries. Native breeds have unique features such as the disease resistance gene and the presence of the A2 variant in the milk of some native cows has been confirmed. According to reports, there has been a 27% decrease in the native breed from 2003 to 1977.Crossbreed populations have increased over the past few decades, and they have grown by about 22 percent. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to review the situation of native cattle and conservation strategies in the country.

In order to conserve of native breed, activities have done include the establish of native cattle stations, the implementation of composite breed projects to conserve blood percent of native cattle, native cattle genomic projects, cooperation with the private sector to purify native populations, the allocation of subsidies, save of genetic material at the Gene Banks of the Animal Breeding Center and the National Center for Genetic Resources and these actions have not been successful.

The animal genetic conservation programs in developing countries are confounded by different challenges and the efforts of conservation of animal genetic resources are minimal. So the future strategy for native breeds should be a combination of breedimprovement and genetic conservation.

Developing a medium-term and long-term strategy for breeding, considering the potential of each breed in different regions separately, and policy-making and presenting strategic plans is a suitable solution. The following factors are needed to economizethe native livestock such as establishment of regional gene banks in accordance with the principles of conservation, cooperation animal husbandry, governmental and non-governmental organizations, appropriate coordination and cooperation between different organizations, research institutes, Academic and animal science associations and breeding companies are required.