Introduction

With this level of state of knowledge on indigenous animal genetic resources developed over the years, it is increasingly important to document them in a comprehensive publication that can be used at national and international level as a reference guide for knowing the intricacy of the breed or population structure of each of the available breed or population.

There is no law at present unlike plants such as Plant Variety and Farmer’s Right Protection Act, 2001 or Wild Life Act that can provide the legal support in case of global dispute on IPR issues developed from animal genetic resources. However, due to passing of National Biodiversity Act, 2002, there is some sort of regulations on exchange of animal germplasm across the countries.

Further, unlike European countries, there are no breed societies or breed survival trusts that not only register the pure bred germplasm but also provide all the logistical support to the animal owners. Keeping all these complexities in mind, we planned to compile all the available information on all the well-described breeds as well as newer breeds or populations that are being considered important in the animal production system of the country.

The task of collecting the literature on each of the breeds or populations along with the quality photographs of the representative breeding animals, both male and female, was a Herculean task. We are able to complete the task of bringing the present book “Atlas of Animal Genetic Resources of India” in this form because of the collective efforts of the authors and tremendous support by our scientist colleagues at the Bureau.