NordFrost

NordFrost

Project period: 2021-2023

In the NordFrost project, coordinated by NordGen, stakeholders will develop a regional action plan for Nordic cryopreservation activities. The project will develop common procedures for cryopreservation by describing the existing best practices, but also mapping weaknesses so that they can be developed. In the long term, these guidelines will help increase the resilience of the Nordic agriculture.

Farm animal genetic resources will play an important and increasing role in solving future challenges regarding food security, agricultural productivity and sustainable agriculture in face of climate change and other global challenges. But one substantial challenge is how to conserve these resources outside of their natural habitat, ex situ. In case of extreme events, entire animal populations can be wiped out, since farm animal and fish genetic resources are most often small and locally adapted populations. In the NordFrost project, and following network, cryo-conservation of farm animal genetic resources is further explored.

Conserving animal genetic resources outside of the animal’s natural habitat, ex situ, is a great complement to conservation in its natural habitat. This is usually done by using “cryogenic preservation techniques” — the collection and freezing in liquid nitrogen of semen, ova or embryos, or the preservation of DNA segments in frozen blood or other tissues. Within the NordFrost project, stakeholders will develop a regional action plan for Nordic cryopreservation activities. It will develop common cryopreservation procedures by describing the existing best practices but also mapping weaknesses. In the long term, these guidelines will help increase the resilience of Nordic agriculture. 

The NordFrost project is building a network of Nordic key stakeholders with the aim of raising awareness among researchers, policy makers, genebank institutions and farmers about the importance of common guidelines and goals for cryo-conservation. The NordFrost network will include a broad group of stakeholders enabling people from different backgrounds to meet, share experiences and create joint efforts to the conservation of native farm animal and fish breeds. This will contribute to Nordic food security and self-sufficiency, as well as conserving the unique biodiversity of the numerous native breeds found in the Nordic region. The main objective of the NordForst network is to develop a regional action plan for the Nordic ex-situ in-vitro conservation programmes that will serve as a new tool to increase resilience of agriculture in the Nordic region”. In these programmes cryo-conservation of farm animal genetic resources is a crucial tool for the success in management and conservation of genetic diversity in small native farm animal populations. Subsequently, NordFrost project has created roadmap aiming at Nordic back-up ex situ genebanks for the native farm animal breeds.