In the 1970s, scientists claimed that farm animal breeding was finally evolving from an art into a science. In their view, the switch to scientific breeding was as inevitable as the ongoing process of agricultural modernization. However, the art-to-science scenario is too simplistic to do justice to the complex dynamic that characterized the transformation of the field.
The livestock breeds that take centre stage in this book – dairy cattle, chickens, pigs, sheep, and horses – were products of the twentieth century. The methods used by breeders to improve their animals, however, were much older. Tracing the history of practical stockbreeding, the role of Mendelism in scientific breeding, and the emergence of quantitative genetics, Beauty or Statistics shows that the story of the scientific modernization of livestock breeding can be more fruitfully analysed from the perspective of changing cultures of breeding, taking practical, commercial, normative, and aesthetic considerations into account.
Author(s): Bert Theunissen
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 284
City: Toronto
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Contents
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
1. Breeding for Nobility or for Production? Friesian Dairy Cattle
The Breeders Get Organized
Type and Tuberculosis
The Moral Economy of Breeding
Bloodlines and Purity
Scientific Breeding
Nobility or Production?
Entrepreneurship
Indexes
Holsteinization
Market and Moral Economy
2. The Most Efficient Chickens in the World
From Side Business to Mainstay
Hybrid Breeding
Hy-Line and Hendrix Genetics
From Purebreds to First-Generation Crossbreds
Industrialization
Developments in Breeding
Chickens Are Not Peas
3. Breeding a Pig for All Parties
Testing for Productive Traits
Minkema’s Breeding Plan
AI in Pigs
Hybrid Pig Breeding
The Breeder’s Eye
Pigs Are Not Chickens
4. Just Not Like Any Other Sheep Breed: The Texel
Creating the Texel
The Swifter
Breeding By Numbers or By Eye
AI in Texel Sheep
What’s in a Breed?
5. From Farm Horse to Riding Horse: The Dutch Warmbloods
Gelderlanders and Groningers
Introducing “Hot Blood”
Finding the Right Mix
The Government Intervenes
Scientific Breeding
Balancing Practical and Scientific Methods
Conclusions
Notes
Sources
Bibliography
Index
