Introduction to the Symposium on Pig Biodiversity, which was held in the Spanish city of Córdoba during 7-9th November 2002

Alderson, L.

Cardellino, R.

Chevalet, C.

Delgado-Bermejo, J.V.

Plastow, G.

Archivos de Zootecnia

Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Córdoba

Arch. Zootec. 52: 127-128. 2003.EDITORIALDelgado, J.V.1, G. Plastow2, L. Alderson3, C. Chevalet4 and R. Cardellino5(The editorial board)1Departamento de Genética. Campus de Rabanales. Ed.C-5. 14071 Córdoba. España.E-mail: Id1debej@uco.es2PIC/Sygen International, Fyfield wick, Abingdon, Oxon, OX13 5NA, UK.E-mail: Graham.Plastow@sygeninternational.com3Rare Breeds International, 6 Harnage, Shrewsbury, UK.E-mail: alderson@clltd.demon.co.uk4INRA. Laboratoire de Génétique Cellulaire. 31326 Castanet Tolosan Cedex. France.E-mail: chevalet@toulouse.inra.fr5Animal Production and Health Division. FAO. 00100 Rome. Italy.E-mail: Ricardo.Cardellino@fao.orgThe successful improvement of pig productivity in the developed world hasresulted in intensive use of a relatively small number of breeds. Whilst thesepractices have provided for the high quality protein needs of the human diet in thelast 50 years it has had a detrimental effect on genetic variation. This reliance onthese improved breeds has had a significant impact on more traditional or localbreeds. Herd sizes have fallen, resulting in the potential loss of the breed or lossof distinctiveness through crossbreeding in attempts to sustain such populations.Even so there are still a large number of breeds present in Europe as well as therest of the world. Efforts of the FAO and Rare Breeds International are beginningto reverse this trend (for example since the formation of the RBST in 1973 in theUK none of the registered breeds has been lost). Today circumstances havechanged and new challenges have appeared in pig production such as environmentalprotection, food safety and animal welfare. These changing consumer demandsare resulting in a greater diversity of quality products and also encourage methodsof production that are more suited to some of the local breeds that are still foundwithin Europe. In addition, geneticists (in both academia and industry) arerecognizing the importance of maintaining breed diversity in order to conserveimportant genes related to quality, adaptation and reproduction traits that breederscan use to respond to the changing demands of the market place. This economicpoint of view together with other arguments such as the historical role of thesepopulations, the environmental repercussions and the social impact, have createdin the last five years a special interest in the study of the world pig biodiversity,especially in the European Union. During this time DNA markers became readilyavailable to provide a better measure of genetic distances in populations. Severalprojects have been developed on this subject at both the national and theinternational level but there was a need for an event to report and discuss the majorresults and findings on the detection, characterization, conservation and utilizationof Pig Genetic Diversity.Archivos de zootecnia vol. 52, núm. 198, p. 128.DELGADO, PLASTOW, ALDERSON, CHEVALET AND CARDELLINOThis volume presents the proceedings of the Symposium on Pig Biodiversity,which was held in the Spanish city of Córdoba during 7-9th November 2002,organised to review the state of the art in the field. More than fifty researchersfrom 16 countries (France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal,Spain, Sweden, UK, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru, Uruguay andUSA) participated in the event. The papers represent two types of contributionmade at the Symposium; firstly the main papers developed from the EC fundedproject CHARACTERISATION OF GENETIC VARIATION IN THE EUROPEANPIG TO FACILITATE THE MAINTENANCE AND EXPLOITATION OFBIODIVERSITY (PIGBIODIV I) in subjects of general interest such as thetechnical aspects of sampling, AFLP and microsatellite marker genotyping, thestatistical analysis of genetic profiles and calculation of genetic distance; theorganization, presentation and dissemination of data; and also the legal aspects ofthe intellectual property of the genetic material and its associated information.Then the second part consists of specific contributions from different initiativeslooking at local breeds or related issues, in the format of short communications.A total of 15 countries are represented by contributions to these proceedingswith important papers developed in cooperation or individually. We consider thatthis represents a reference point for the future for all scientists, industry, NGOsand the National and International official institutions who desire to work in thenew frontiers of pig production.We must highlight the outstanding role played by Dr. Louis Ollivier, from INRA(France), who coordinated two of the most important international projectsdeveloped in this subject. He has given a strong stimulus to all researchersinvestigating pig biodiversity, and without his leadership, support and dedication thePigBioDiv I project would not have been such a great success. The relevance ofthe methodology employed, and the results obtained, stimulated the EuropeanUnion to fund a second project (PIGBIODIV II) centered in the exploration of thegenetic diversity of Asian pig breeds and comparison with European breeds. Theaims and objectives of this project were also presented in the Symposium and aredescribed here.Sincere thanks are made to those organizations supporting the Symposium: PigImprovement Company (PIC) who contributed to the science and also in theorganization of the event. We must not forget the support of the CYTED Program(Programa Iberoamericano de Ciencia y Tecnología para el Desarrollo) enablingthe participation and presentation of results of researchers from Latin America.The Spanish Institute of Agricultural Research (INIA) contributed to the fundingof this publication. The University of Córdoba, and especially the ProvincialGovernment of Córdoba (Diputación de Córdoba) who gave enthusiastic andessential support to the development of this meeting. Once again we acknowledgeLouis Ollivier for his enthusiastic inputs to the development and implementation ofthe meeting. Finally, we would like to thank all of the participants for contributingto a successful Symposium and what we hope is a valuable record of the event.

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