Blood ties: Kinship, reciprocity and love on heritage breed farms

Fantasies of human mastery over nature are difficult to sustain as a 125 nanometre virus wreaks havoc across the globe, while the ecological crisis highlights the detrimental impacts stemming from the domination model’s prevalence in recent history. Within the agricultural sector, the livestock industry’s intensive breeding programs and global distribution have resulted in the homogenisation of bloodlines, and the extinction of a domestic animal breed globally each month for the past 30 years (FAO 2015). Alongside the risks posed by diminishing genetic diversity, the heritage breeds under threat possess valuable qualities, including hardiness, and pest and disease resistance, which may prove invaluable in the climate change era. Moreover, heritage breeds’ adaption to pastured farming systems lends to better animal welfare outcomes, albeit at a higher cost of production. Through perpetuating heritage bloodlines, despite the considerable economic and social challenges this entails, rare breed farmers exemplify an alternative to the mastery model through engaging in high-stakes interspecies relationships characterised by interdependence and mutuality across generations. In this paper, I explore the reciprocity evident in cycles of labour and nurture, and the role of love in sustaining heritage breeds. I argue that conceptualising livestock as kin, and recognising the centrality of love, not only reflects emic constructions, but constitutes a politics of sustainability for nonhuman and human animals alike.