Project
AF-16022 Breed4Food II
Sustainable production of high-quality animal protein for a growing world population is the key challenge for livestock industry in the future. Breed4Food envisions that in 2050 resilient and healthy animals will produce enough animal protein in a resource-efficient and societally accepted way to feed the worlds population. Breed4Food partners deliver innovations to livestock production chains through genetic improvement of animals.
Aim
The aim is to enable sustainable protein production by developing and applying innovations that utilize the genetic potential of cattle, pigs and poultry. This will result in production animals that are suited to meet future needs. Joint development of pre-competitive knowledge is crucial to achieve these goals.
Building on emerging technologies for (precision) phenotyping and genotyping, the Breed4Food activities in 2017-2021 will focus on: (1) providing tools to enable efficient breeding for sustainability traits, and (2) efficient utilization of DNA information and different sources of phenotypic data in breeding programmes. The anticipated innovations will generate effective breeding programmes and broad breeding goals that capture traits related to resource efficiency, health and welfare.
Impact
Valorization of the Breed4Food innovations will result in new generations of resilient and healthy animals that efficiently transform nutrients into human-edible protein with reduced mineral losses and greenhouse gas emissions with a favourable impact on the business of the Breed4Food companies and the requirements of societal stakeholders. These improvements lead to a sustainable and societally accepted livestock production chain. Furthermore, valorization will strengthen the world-leading positions of the Netherlands-based Breed4Food breeding companies, and will improve the competitive position of Dutch livestock producers and other partners in the production chain. Finally, it will also strengthen the scientific position of Wageningen UR as the world leader of research and training in the field of animal breeding and genomics.