Constructing the Selectable Animal

This article analyzes the emergence, structuring and undermining, in France, of an “intensive breeding regime” in the realm of animal genetic resources management in agriculture. In the 60’s, this regime replaced previous breeding practices. This regime is characterized by a cooperative and public organization between farmers and public research, and a strong State regulation of the production of knowledge on animals and breeding markets. Based on a longitudinal study of breeding activities in the Western-Pyrenees sheep milk industry, this article identifies the processes of institutional emergence of contemporary animal breeding practices. It focuses on the joint transformation of modes of knowledge production, objects and markets for animal genetic resources. This analysis helps identifying several breeding regimes, based on different modes of knowledge in tension. Their coexistence, in the case under study, threatens the compulsory cooperation for maintaining local breeds. It highlights the emergence of neo-communitarian breeding regimes and addresses the question of how recent scientific innovations (genomic tools for example) and political changes impact the socio-economic organization of animal genetic resources management.