Races de France

Races de France federates French Selection Organizations of different breeds and is in charge of:

• representing its members and defending their interests towards national and European public institutions and organizations dealing with animal breeding as well as towards organizations in charge of farm products and local development.
• coordinating and supporting the missions of its members, notably within their regulatory mandates.
• advocating a concept of animal farming where biodiversity effectively contributes to local development and fosters industry performance.
• acting for biodiversity conservation and development (zoogenetic resources)

Selection Organizations gather in a balanced representation breeders, industry and territory actors. These breed institutions work together for the promotion of the breed and are in charge of:

• Herd book keeping, establishing the breed specifics leading to the definition of the breed code and confirmation of racial status for quality industries.
• Defining breeding objectives (variables, economic weights, qualification thresholds for reproducers). This work is done by taking into account the different interests of the partners.
• Supervising the morphology scoring of animals(traits to score, course and qualification of linear scorers)

For sheep and goats in a global management prospective, the selection organization is able to coordinate or even instigate actions towards genetic improvement.