Home > News > Farm Animals > NordFrost will Pave the Way for Joint Guidelines on Cryo in the Nordic Region

NordFrost will Pave the Way for Joint Guidelines on Cryo in the Nordic Region

Date: 2021.02.19

In a new project called NordFrost, which NordGen is coordinating, stakeholders will develop a regional action plan for Nordic cryopreservation activities. The project will develop common procedures for cryopreservation by describing the existing best practices, but also mapping weaknesses so that they can be developed. In the long term, these guidelines will help increase the resilience of the Nordic agriculture.

Farm animal genetic resources will play an important and increasing role in solving future challenges regarding food security, agricultural productivity and sustainable agriculture in face of climate change and other global challenges. But one substantial challenge is how to conserve these resources outside of their natural habitat, ex situ.

“We are happy to finally go ahead with this project as there is a great need of safeguarding Nordic farm animal genetic resources,” said Mervi Honkatukia, Section Leader at NordGen Farm Animlas.

Entire populations can be wiped out

In case of extreme events, entire animal populations can be wiped out, since farm animal and fish genetic resources are most often small and locally adapted populations. The native breeds show large adaptation potential and may become crucial for increased resilience of the Nordic agriculture.

Conserving animal genetic resources outside of the animal’s natural habitat, ex situ, is a great complement to conservation in its natural habitat. This is usually done by using “cryogenic preservation techniques” — the collection and freezing in liquid nitrogen of semen, ova or embryos, or the preservation of DNA segments in frozen blood or other tissues.

Nordic cooperation

The NordFrost project is building a network of Nordic key stakeholders with the aim of raising awareness among researchers, policy makers, genebank institutions and farmers about the importance of common guidelines and goals for cryoconservation.

“The NordFrost network will include a broad group of stakeholders enabling people from different backgrounds to meet, share experiences and create joint efforts to the conservation of native farm animal and fish breeds. This will contribute to Nordic food security and self-sufficiency, as well as conserving the unique biodiversity of the numerous native breeds found in the Nordic region,” said Mervi Honkatukia.

Like an insurance

One part of the project is to investigate the financial aspects of safeguarding our genetic resources, which are often overlooked. And the economic value they bring is not captured by market prices. Researcher Annika Tienhaara, who is part of the NordFrost team, specialises in finding methods for assigning monetary values to the safeguarding of our genetic resources:

Image: Annika Tienhaara, Luke

“Using cryopreservation as a way to safeguard our genetic diversity for the future is much like an insurance. The existence of a broad genetic diversity is essential for breeding. With climate change, traits such as resilience and adaptability may become more important than productivity.”

The potential of using our genetic resources in the future is the most important factor when defining their monetary value. This mean that they are largely undervalued as future potential is rarely taken into account when decisions are being made.

“Even though it’s hard to put a finger on exactly how valuable genetic resources are, economic valuation can help to examine how much people would be willing to pay for the preservation of our genetic resources. One thing is for sure though — being able to reach policy makers with even a rough value estimate will make it easier for them to make decisions,” said Annika Tienhaara.