The general manager of Agrarian productions and markets of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nourishment and Environment, Fernando Miranda, and the president of the Breeders and Owners Association of Menorca Horses, Cristóbal Marqués, signed a collaboration agreement last 4 November. The agreement is in order to store and guard the genetic material of the Menorca Horse breed (semen doses, embryos and oocytes) in the Bank of Animal Germ Plasm placed in the Centre of Animal Selection and Reproduction in Colmenar Viejo.
The Bank of Animal Germ Plasm is made up of a permanent and closed collection of reproductive material of all of our native breeds. It allows to act as a security element in case of a loss of the genetic variability of the breed, or even, in case of its extinction. So, it acts as a strategic element in the National Program of Preservation, Improvement and Encouragement of the Stock Breeds and in the actions of conservation of the wide Spanish stockbreeder heritage.
Through the store standardised in this agreement, a security copy of the reproductive material found previously placed in other germ plasm banks is done. It guarantees the full recovery of the breed, even in the hypothetical case of that its germ plasm bank of origin disappeared.
