Farmers should adopt native livestock breeds to keep costs down post-Brexit

“They also tend to have great maternal qualities and are fertile and long-lived, meaning reduced replacement costs.

“In addition, more people are caring about the provenance of their food. Rare and native breeds fit perfectly into this narrative.

“With an unparalleled diversity of breeds in the UK, there really is a native breed to suit every farming system.”

The call for farmers to consider adopting more native and rare breeds came as the RBST published its latest ‘Watchlist’, which reports on the state of the UK’s registered native breeds each year.

Resilient

The Watchlist showed native livestock breeds are proving resilient in the face of economic challenges, with trends for most species over the last five years found to be stable or increasing.

The picture for cattle is positive, with some breeds enjoying a particularly good year as farmers recognise their versatility.

Sheep breeds are also stable or increasing, and goats, particularly the Golden Guernsey and Bagot, are on the rise.

But horse breeds, especially iconic heavy horses such as Suffolks, Shires and Clydesdales, are decreasing in number.