27 November 2015: The Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN (FAO) has developed a tool that can help estimate the potential impact of climate change on the distribution of livestock breeds. The tool will be launched at the 21st session of the Conference of the Parties (COP 21) to the UNFCCC in Paris, France.

The tool is designed to assess how livestock populations adapt as new challenges emerge, whether associated with climate change, other environmental trends or changing market or societal demands. The underlying FAO database provides access to country-level and some subnational data on roughly 8,800 livestock breeds, as recorded in the Domestic Animal Diversity Information System (DAD-IS). This information can be used to model suitable areas for breeds under current and expected future conditions, taking several temperature and humidity parameters into account. The tool also enables users to choose among several climate change models “representing a range from optimistic [RCP 2.6] to rather pessimistic [RCP 8.5] constellations.”

Initial analysis indicates that the model is most useful for identifying adaptation in local breeds, known to be mainly kept under relatively extensive conditions, and suggests that the adaptive link between a livestock population and its local production environment may be broken if climatic conditions change rapidly.

The tool is expected to contribute to more informed decision-making on breed management in a changing climate and hence strengthen the capacity of national governments, livestock keepers and farmers to protect and enhance food security and manage their animal genetic resources sustainably. [FAO News Announcement]