“We are moving towards import substitution”: a breeder scientist on providing Russian livestock breeding with breeding material

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- Such dependence, unfortunately, exists, and for a long time.

However, since about 2014, our country began to think about the need to replace this import.

And in 2017, the Federal Scientific and Technical Program for the Development of Agriculture was adopted in Russia, which provides for the creation of scientific and technical projects in the field of meat, dairy farming, poultry farming, growing sugar beet, and so on. 

Now we provide ourselves with livestock products by about 70-75%.

This is a very good indicator.

So, Russia is provided with beef by 65-70%, and the needs for pork and poultry are fully covered by their own supplies.

However, our pig and poultry industries are highly dependent on imports of hatching eggs, day-old chicks, as well as live boars and semen.

Dairy farming also depends on the supply of breeding materials, but to a much lesser extent.

A lot of breeding material is also imported from abroad for meat sheep breeding, because in Russia fine-fleeced sheep were traditionally bred, not meat ones.

According to our calculations, today the provision of domestic agriculture with breeding resources of sires (both Russian selection and live animals previously imported into the country) is about 70-75%, the rest is imported in the form of deep-frozen semen.

In general, we are now progressively moving towards replacing the import of genetic materials for agriculture with our own resources.

Yes, we are still dependent on foreign supplies, but not as critical as before, especially in terms of dairy farming.

In Russia, for example, there is a state holding JSC "Head Center for the Reproduction of Farm Animals", which includes 26 breeding enterprises from all over the country.

In total, they already keep more than 1 thousand sires.

So, although many breeding enterprises were closed in the 1990s, we did not completely lose our opportunities.

We are also engaged in poultry farming, for example, in the Moscow region there is a breeding poultry plant "Smena" - one of the largest producers of genetic material for broilers in Russia.

— You mentioned that the share of imports in poultry and pig breeding is higher.

Why?

- The fact is that these areas now give the most products and, accordingly, need large volumes of breeding material.

We have our own selection and hybrid centers, there are quite a lot of them, but the capacity is still not enough.

Today, almost all agricultural production is concentrated in the hands of big players who are forced to purchase genetic material on an industrial scale also from large producers - already foreign ones.

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- Why did this situation arise?

To answer this question, let's look at history.

Back in the 1950s, it became clear that small farms could not feed the cities.

The development of large industrial agro-complexes for the production of milk and fattening of animals began.

This, in turn, made it possible to organize a selection system.

When you have a very large number of animals, it is much easier to choose the best ones.

Academician Lev Konstantinovich Ernst, whose name our institute now bears, stood at the origins of the so-called large-scale selection system.

Even then, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, selection was tied to the analysis of large population data arrays.

In the 1980s, with the advent and development of computerized accounting systems, it became easier to select the best animals.

At the same time, there was tribal support from abroad even then.

Stud bulls were imported from Canada, the USA, Denmark and other Western countries, but then this import did not have such a scale as it does now, it was still piecemeal.

When the USSR collapsed, it turned out that it was much easier to import animals from abroad than to engage in breeding by ourselves.

And the whole Soviet large-scale selection system simply ordered a long life.

However, on its ruins, the Seleks computerized livestock accounting system was still created.

In the 1990s and early 2000s, it was gradually introduced to all farms.

To date, detailed information is available for all Russian farms, each region has its own database.

But, unfortunately, we still cannot combine all this data into one system.

This is probably the biggest problem.

It turned out to be easier for us to import breeding material from abroad than to build our own system for recording animal productivity.

The lack of a centralized accounting system, an outdated breeding system - all this led to the fact that it was easier for producers to buy everything abroad.

But without a large-scale breeding system, it is impossible to work effectively not only with domestic, but also with imported breeding material.

The fact is that now the selection is no longer carried out according to the principle "like it - do not like it."

Many signs should be taken into account, this is a complex and costly work.

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— And how is pedigree import organized?

What exactly is being imported?

- In cattle breeding, imported sires are often imported.

This is a good option, because such animals are then used at our breeding enterprises - artificial insemination stations.

And when frozen bull semen is imported, sometimes buyers can get a pig in a poke.

Moreover, the productivity of animals depends very much on the technologies of growing and feeding.

Purchasing genetic material alone is not enough, it is also necessary to create for animals the conditions under which they were bred and in which they can give maximum results.

- Maybe modern technologies will speed up the work on breeding import substitution?

Are any new developments of this kind used in Russia?

- There are such developments, although it cannot be said that they are generated solely on the basis of Russian scientific approaches.

First of all, it is necessary to highlight the method of genomic selection.

In this case, in order to assess the quality of the animal, you do not need to wait until it grows up, starts to give milk, and so on.

The selection is carried out according to genetic markers, based on DNA samples isolated from the tissue of the animal under study.

This allows you to speed up the selection and selection twice as compared with the traditional method.

Plus, reproductive and assisted technologies are actively used in animal husbandry today.

They allow you to get from the best cow not 2-5 calves in her life, but, for example, from 20 or more.

Such a cow carries the embryo to a certain stage, then it is removed and frozen.

And the cycle of work with this animal can be repeated.

And the embryos are then planted in other cows, who are already carrying them until birth.

This method is too expensive for industrial cattle breeding, but it is actively used in breeding.

- Are our domestic breeds of cows, sheep, pigs able to replace imported ones?

- It's a difficult question.

It is hardly possible now to replace the imported livestock gene pool with domestic ones.

For example, in the total number of cows now the share of European Holstein and the so-called Holsteinized Black-and-White cattle of Russian origin is about 80-85%.

Or, for example, the Simmental cow breed, which has been bred in Russia for about 150 years, should it be replaced with something?

Yes, for example, our original Yaroslavl breed of cows is famous for its good milk quality, but in the commercial sector it is difficult for it to compete with the high-yielding Holstein breed.

Now such primordially Russian breeds are kept mainly by very poor farms that cannot afford to purchase imported breeding material - heifers and heifers (cows that have not yet had offspring).

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Not many domestic breeds have survived, some have already been completely lost.

The situation is complicated by the fact that keeping bulls at artificial insemination stations is very expensive, no one will keep bulls of breeds that are unpopular with solvent agricultural holdings there.

- That is, we have only one way left - further selection of foreign breeds previously imported into the country?

- Yes.

- And it is impossible, relatively speaking, to update domestic breeds with the help of selection so that they become competitive?

- Such attempts were made, for example, they tried to improve the Yaroslavl breed on the basis of crossing our domestic cows with imported bulls.

But in the end, it all came down to the fact that after several generations the Yaroslavl breed went into oblivion, was absorbed by the Holsteins, because the owners saw a quick effect from the crossbred animals of the Holstein breed, milk yields increased sharply.

Our breeds would be commercially interesting if we developed our own breeding system for these animals.

— Is there a united “bank” of domestic breeds of cattle?

- The Ministry of Agriculture annually conducts the so-called appraisal, or a comprehensive assessment of animals.

Data in the form of statistical reporting is collected and deposited on the basis of the All-Russian Research Institute "Institute of Breeding".

So yes, it is known for certain how many and what kind of animals of what breeds there are in the country.

— In 2020, scientists from L.K.

Ernst, together with colleagues, received the first viable cloned calf in Russia.

As the media wrote, the researchers managed to knock out the genes of the beta-lactoglobulin protein, which is responsible for milk allergy in humans, in the laboratory.

Can GMO technologies also help produce more productive animals?

- Work on knockout of genes is being carried out now, they have not yet been completed.

And the cloned calf was indeed obtained, this is a heifer named Flower.

In addition, we now have extensive studies of this kind in sheep.

We are talking about getting a cloned sheep in Russia.

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With the help of genome editing, it is possible to obtain animals that produce certain proteins, but this issue must be approached carefully.

In crop production abroad, such technologies are used very actively, but they have not yet found wide application in animal husbandry.

There are separate developments - for example, at one time a sheep was created, the milk protein of which is similar to the proteins of a spider web.

— Do imported breeds of cattle have disadvantages, except for the need to buy them abroad?

Is it true, for example, that today's highly productive dairy cows today have a low life expectancy?

- This is true.

Here the situation is similar to professional sports.

An athlete, in order for him to give a result, needs to create special conditions.

And still, by a certain age, many professional athletes leave the sport and even often lose their health.

So it is in modern dairy farming.

An animal that gives the maximum amount of milk exhausts itself.

This leads to a loss of reproductive ability, a reduction in life.

Our domestic breeds, by the way, are deprived of these disadvantages.

But in any case, you need to look for a middle ground between productivity here and now, the cost of maintaining an animal and the terms of its productive life.

In principle, if we evaluate in a complex, then our breeds are also not bad.

It's just that work with them was practically stopped in the 1990s, when complex breeding activities were curtailed, and everyone began to think only about a momentary commercial result.

- If the most negative scenario is realized and the supply of breeding material from abroad is stopped, will we be able to provide ourselves with milk, meat and the like in the current volumes?

Not only can we, but we must do it.

And for this there are all prerequisites.

Yes, it is possible that during the first two to five years it will not be very easy, while we will establish our system of selection and reproduction.

But I think that now is just the time for us to take up this work at a new level - both in poultry farming and in animal husbandry.