Ruminants genetic resources from French mountain areas: characterisation, adaptation, valorisation

摘要

Mountain areas take up an important space within the French territory. These areas play a specific economic role, through tourism, forestry and agriculture, the latter activity being mainly represented by livestock production. During the 20th century,agriculture in mountain areas evolved in an unfavourable way, especially due to significant rural depopulation. However, in the last 20 to 30 years, this agriculture has experienced new dynamics, based on the valorisation of the local animal genetic resources. The purpose of this paper is to show how and why these genetic resources are well suited to a sustainable development of agriculture in mountain areas. In the first part, an overview of the French mountain areas and their local breeds of ruminants will be given. Next, two examples of the valorisation of local breeds will be developed, one in a Mediterranean context, the other in a non-Mediterranean context.