Beauty or Statistics: Practice and Science in Dutch Livestock Breeding, 1900–2000

Description

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. 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