Managing cows: an ethnography of breeding practices and uses of reproductive technology in contemporary dairy farming in Lombardy (Italy)

Stud. Hist. Phil. Biol. & Biomed. Sci. 38 (2007) 488–510

Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences www.elsevier.com/locate/shpsc

Managing cows: an ethnography of breeding practices and uses of reproductive technology in contemporary dairy farming in Lombardy (Italy) Cristina Grasseni Doctoral School in the Anthropology and Epistemology of Complexity (CERCO), University of Bergamo, Sede di S. Agostino, Piazzale S. Agostino 2, 24129 Bergamo, Italy

Abstract The aim of this article is to contribute detailed ethnographic material to broaden the scope of what we mean by reproductive technology. Technology can be defined not only by a series of laboratory techniques (such as artificial insemination and embryo transfer) that are drafted into the daily management of the animal body, but also by a range of on-farm management strategies and working routines, as well as the cultural dispositions, social networks and tacit knowledge of the actors involved. RT is communicated to lay operators and disseminated amongst semi-professional figures such as breed experts, herd inspectors and technical consultants. The practical contexts in which reproductive knowledge is popularized and applied provide ample scope for local negotiations, resistance and conflict. Professional knowledge about breed-improvement is personalised and appropriated by operators and plays a role in power relations and the exercise of personal charisma as well as being specific to context, in particular the nuances of pre-existing relationships of trust, friendship, kinship or hierarchy. No wonder then that many ambivalences and compromises coexist in the practice of applying ‘reproductive knowledge’ to breed selection. Ó 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Keywords: Ethnography; Dairy farming; Breed selection; Rural development; Alps; Mountain communities

E-mail address: [email protected] 1369-8486/$ - see front matter Ó 2007 Published by Elsevier Ltd. doi:10.1016/j.shpsc.2007.03.010

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1. Introduction As a working social anthropologist, my contribution is based on my ethnographic experience of the daily management, techniques and expertise of the breed selection of dairy cattle in traditional farming contexts. I refer in particular to what is by now a nineyear-old personal knowledge of one specific mountain community—located at the feet of the Alps in Lombardy, Italy—and of its surrounding geographical, social and economic context (extending mainly to the valleys and lowlands of the province of Bergamo, Lecco and Cremona). This valley (Valtaleggio), like other similar mountain enclosures in northern Italy, is depicted in political and socio-economic analyses of the Lombard Region as ‘marginal’, ‘rural’ and ‘traditional’.1 This can even be of some advantage in tourist and commercial terms (for instance for the purpose of marketing typical local foods such as cheese). The scope and objective of my field research in such ‘marginal rural areas’ is that of verifying this generic definition and outlining its connections with the ‘bigger picture’ of dairy farming in the Lombard plains. For instance, one third of the Italian cow’s milk production comes from Lombardy. 46% of the high-altitude grazed pastures of northern Italy are located in the Lombard mountains. Nevertheless, only 0.6% of the Lombard milk production comes from high altitude pastures (alpi pascolive) (Corti, 2004, p. 31). The contrast between mountain and lowland, hence, couldn’t be starker, especially if cast in terms of productivity. Studying the actual practices and discourses of agricultural operators living in the mountains one discovers a world living at the fringes of the industrial agribusinesses that thrive in the lowlands immediately south of their valleys. Is there a technological gap between mountain rural areas and lowland rural areas (in the sense of access to reproductive technologies, for instance)? Or, are there different cultural interpretations and attitudes towards the use of such technologies, if readily available to all? Or again, does the wider economic, geographic, and socio-cultural context of agricultural practice in the mountains and in the lowlands make a difference to the ways, and the degree of success, in which reproductive technologies are employed? What I wish to do in what follows is to contribute detailed ethnographic material from one specific case study, which, without wishing to make bold generalizations, can help to refocus the overall picture. In other words it is meant to alert us to the complexity and nuances of the ‘microscopic’ practical contexts in which reproductive knowledge is popularized and applied. In particular, a certain degree of ethnographic detail about actual dialogues between breed experts and lay breeders can highlight the role and impact of social relationships (namely, of kinship, friendship, peer-to-peer and hierarchical professional contact, apprenticeship, political allegiance and so forth) on the ways in which reproductive knowledge gets materially disseminated in ‘marginal’ practices of cattle breeding. The aim of this ethnography is hence to broaden the scope of what we mean by reproductive technology, by showing that technology can be defined not only by a series of laboratory techniques (such as artificial insemination and embryo transfer) that are drafted into the daily management of the animal body, but also by a range of on-farm management

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According to the EU Agenda 2000 (the manifesto for European strategic planning 2000–2006), rural marginal areas meet at least two of four criteria: a) population density less than 100 inhabitants per square kilometre, b) employment rate in agriculture double that of the average EU rate, c) unemployment rate higher than the EU average, d) population decline. 5% of the European population meets such criteria.

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strategies and working routines, as well as the cultural dispositions, social networks and tacit knowledge of the actors involved. Reproductive knowledge is not only produced and experimented in confined sites: it is communicated to lay operators and disseminated amongst semi-professional figures such as breed experts, herd inspectors and technical consultants. It is then organized in practical settings and translated into routines that depend closely on techniques of herd management, farm-keeping and labour division. So this ethnography is, so to speak, concerned with this side of scientific knowledge, exploring the appropriation of reproductive technologies and of knowledge concerning animal breeding amongst the networks of farmers, agricultural trade unions, associations for the promotion of breeding, and hierarchies of breed experts. Such analysis is based on a well established anthropological method for field research, namely participant observation. My fieldwork consisted, for an initial period that began in 1997, in living in close contact with one family of mountain dairy breeders whose farm is based in a hamlet set in the valley of Valtaleggio, in the province of Bergamo. During two consecutive summers, they hosted me in their lodgings on the summer pastures, where they practice the alpage. This is a form of seasonal transhumance by which they take part of their herd away from the village homestead, to let them spend three months grazing the grass of high pastures (at an altitude ranging between 1,200 and 2,000 metres—see Section 3). During my stay I took part in and observed milking in both the village stable and the stations on the high pastures; I filmed the daily works in the shed, I took part in hay-making on the fields around the village and on the high pastures. I shared (and prepared some of) their meals, slept and played together with their children, led their cows uphill when moving to the next station : : : in short I lived with the natives as one of them. After this long period of intense acquaintance with the daily and seasonal practices of just one family and their socio-professional surroundings, for six months between 1998 and 1999 I took up residency in their village and met the other breeders in the valley, whose farms I visited. At this stage I also conducted a ‘shadowing’ campaign with technicians of the agricultural trade-union (Coldiretti), of the breeders’ association (APA) and the breed experts of the breeders’ association of the Italian Brown Breed (ANARB). Instead of the methodology of conducting interviews by appointment, I preferred to take part, as an observer, in some of the routine tasks of their profession. For instance, the point of accessing the farm sites together with the relevant professionals was not to approach the breeders with predetermined questions but to observe their interaction with the professionals, recording some of the conversations for later analysis and filming their structures, herds and working environment for my visual record. During my shadowing of breed experts and technical consultants I was then given detailed explanations about their criteria for evaluating a good milking cow, but what is most important, I listened to the explanations they gave to the farmers. Since then, my knowledge of the site has been constantly updated through yearly visits to the local cattle fairs and farms and with followup interviews with long-standing operators in the breeders’ association and trade union offices. The thesis underlying this contribution is that, in order to explore farms as sites of technological innovation, we need to appreciate the kind of routines and the types of spaces that characterise the life of humans and animals on site. Moreover, one needs to appreciate the ethnographic web of relations that are woven around the enterprise of reproducing animals (Section 2), as this is also in itself an enterprise of the social reproduction of those humans, who invest their professional careers and their identities in this objective (see

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Grasseni, 2004, 2007). I shall focus in particular on how one family of mountain Brown breed dairy breeders focus on the objective of producing outstanding animals as well as prolific milk producers, while managing the logistics and seasonality of their working context (Section 3). I then dwell on the dialogues, exchanges and visits of breed experts and breeders who subscribe to the genetic selection programmes of the Brown breed (Section 4), highlighting the role of trust, personal knowledge and professional authority in dealing with small scale breeders and in disseminating and inculcating reproductive knowledge about breed selection. Finally, I focus on the practice of touring cattle sheds to ‘eye up’ milking cows who are born of heifers inseminated with progeny bulls’ semen and its importance in the in the evaluation of both recommended progeny cows and bulls (Section 5).2 2. Of breeds and bureaucrats In the Italian mountains, farming has for centuries been a self-reproducing practice aimed at family subsistence, though experiments with artificial insemination in breeding have taken place since 1935 not far from them—at the Istituto Spallanzani in Milan.3 In lowland breeding, artificial insemination only became a standard practice in the postwar period, and, after its introduction as a successful standard practice in the 1990s, industrial-scale breeding has made widespread use of embryo-transfer. In other words, selective breeding and the use of reproductive technologies such as artificial insemination and embryo-transfer have accompanied the spread of an intensive model of animal husbandry. This means investing in both the scale and productivity of the herds (their numbers increasing, as well as their individual capacity for milk production). On the other hand, some balancing measures have been introduced at European level to counteract the unsustainable practices of intensive agriculture and breeding, with measures for the preservation and improvement of the rural landscape.4 In particular, then, the model of intensive breeding based on fodder crops, concentration of high numbers of cattle and dissemination of liquid and solid manure in the fields cannot be applied to mountainous areas, where the dimensions of the herd pose an immediate problem to the capacity of the surrounding pastures to absorb their manure without an accumulation of pollutant nitrogen-based substances in the soil. Hence some experts in animal husbandry advocate the differentiation of on-farm activities (not only milk or meat production but also cheese-making, ecotourism and didactic farms), with an active policy of containment of both the scale and productivity of the herds and the corresponding reduction of the pressure on grazing land.5 This sometimes also means employing reproductive technologies and selective breeding, for instance in order to reintroduce autochthonous breeds or breeds at risk of extinction.

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I have elaborated elsewhere on the practice of the visual evaluation of selected and prize cows, both in working conditions and at cattle fairs: Grasseni (2004, 2005). 3 Spallanzani first experimented with artificial insemination on mammals in 1779 (La Piccola Treccani. Dizionario enciclopedico, 1995–1997, Vol. 4, p. 656). 4 This process started, for instance, with EU regulation 2078/92. 5 Corti (2004). Such proposals take on board the considerations on the environmental and cultural unsustainability of the intensive exploitation of land and animals in industrial agriculture. See for instance Dickens (1996), esp. pp. 111–116; Escobar (1999); Hobart (1993); Noske (1989), esp. pp. 22–39; Mendras (1995).

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In Italy there are several associations of breeders that advocate breed selection by pure breed (such as the 1957-founded National Association of the Italian Brown Breed, ANARB, or the National Association of Breeders of the Italian Friesian, ANAFI). Each is represented in the AIA (Association of Italian Breeders). Their institutional objectives are the keeping of the breed’s herd-book (libro genealogico): in the case of ANARB, the herd book is defined as ‘the best tool for improving the breed, aimed at orienting selection and production with particular reference to determining the genetic quality of the reproducers, promoting at the same time economic results’. There exist several consortiums, both private and partly owned by ANARB, that progeny-test bulls and sell their semen for programmed insemination. Analogous selection programmes for the Friesian breed (Holstein) started earlier, resulting in a hyper-thyroideic breed, with bulging eyes, thin bones, fine shapes and huge udders with small teats: ‘machines for milk’—is the common comment by mountain breeders, scornful but often awe-struck. The Holstein and Brown breeds are the most popular breeds amongst industrial dairy farmers in the plains of northern Italy, but the Brown Breed is predominant amongst farms in the Lombard mountains. There are about ten million Brown cattle in the world of which 750,000 are bred in Italy. 220,000 bovine units are registered in the national herd-book of the Italian Brown breed. 140,429 adult cows are monitored for productivity and morphology in 11,500 farms, with an average of twenty cows per farm. This confirms the fact that the Brown breed is popular amongst small-scale farmers, especially in mountain communities.6 A highly complex web of technical, political and economic agencies shape the practice of agricultural improvement. A number of people are involved in the job of advising, monitoring and aiding mountain farmers and breeders (notably vets, agricultural advisors and technicians), often with a view to increasing and expanding the production of quality foods, especially milk and cheese. In particular, a number of technicians, mostly young graduates in agricultural sciences, offer specialist advice (for instance on hygiene standards in production routines) to cheese-making farmers. They may be functionaries of the local farmers’ trade union, technicians of specific Breed Associations (such as ANARB) or the local offices of the AIA. This is of the main technical offices in charge of what I term ‘the politics of advice’.7 It was founded in Rome in 1944 with the objective of promoting the rebirth of Italian animal husbandry, which had been devastated during the World War II. This central bureau has ramified into several territorial associations devoted to the assistance of breeding farms.8 There are currently sixteen regional associations and ninety-two provincial association (APAs) that are affiliated to the AIA. All thirty-six national associations that specialise in one breed or species, are affiliated to the AIA. All of these are voluntary associations with a recognised juridical status and funded through breeder’s subscriptions, whose members subscribe to a policy of breed selection. Local APAs are organised on a territorial basis (for instance there is a committee that coordinates the officers of Bergamo’s province). The services offered vary in range and quality. In Lombardy, provincial APAs usually monitor and store official records of milk production, offer technical assistance for agricultural management, and provide dedicated software for the management of dairy herds. The APAs provide personnel at cattle fairs 6

Data consulted in May 2006 on the ANARB web site www.anarb.it. In Grasseni (Forthcoming). 8 This follows the Chinese-box system of territorial and administrative competences of the Italian nation state (nation–region–province). For instance: Valtaleggio lies in the province of Bergamo, in the Lombardy Region. 7

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for the identification and controls of the exemplars exhibited. APA’s ‘controllers’ often work in co-operation with functionaries of the regional administration (especially from the department of agriculture) and trade unions. Technical assistance to farms is provided through vets, agronomists and breed experts who visit the registered farms regularly. The stated goals of their service are to improve, monitor and standardise the techniques of herd management so as to better the farm’s milk quality and productivity (or in the case of beef cattle, meat production). One of the stated aims of APAs as a service to the public is that this will better the quality of food of animal origin available to the end consumer. APAs stress the professional behaviour of their technicians and their social aims of improving animal performance and welfare as well as providing economic benefits to farmers. The APAs are professional associations with technical and economic objectives, but also play an important political function as representatives of the breeders. They liaise with and lobby administrative and regulatory organs—both at local and national level—and they obtain funds and aid for the improvement of animal husbandry. They also enrol scientific agencies and institutions in their capacity as ‘managers’ of ‘genetic centres’ where progeny bulls of specific breed are tested. The biggest and better organised APAs in Lombardy are in lowland areas, where dairy breeding is a well rooted industrial practice specialising in the Holstein breed. The province of Cremona is thus the apt location for the Laboratory of Reproduction Technologies (LTR) of CIZ Research and Genetics, a consortium founded in 1947 and owned by seventy breeders’ associations of which the AIA is the majority partner. LTR, founded in 1991, offers bovine, horse or buffalo embryos for embryo-transfer. It also offers an exclusive ‘genetic salvage’ programme for bovines only, by which eggs of a deceased donor can be extracted and fertilised in vitro to produce embryos for transplantation. This is a very useful service for breeders whose best producers or reproducers die untimely deaths or have to be put down because of illnesses or accidents. The first embryos successfully produced from in vitro fertilisation of eggs of deceased cows were obtained in 1992.9 LTR is also at the forefront of research and experimentation in animal cloning. In 1999 they produced the first clone, Galileo, of a tested progeny bull of the Italian Brown breed, Zoldo,10 followed in 2001 by three clones of the Friesian progeny bull Carol Prelude Mtoto and in 2003 by Prometea, a foal, clone of her own dam.11 Professionals of the territorial offices of the Breeder’s Association (APA) and of the relevant breed associations (such as ANARB for the Brown breed) are faced daily with very different scenarios in the lowlands and highlands of the Lombard Region. Between these two areas there exists both a ‘generational’ and an ‘infrastructural’ gap. As a result of a steady pattern of out-migration from mountain communities, in fact, the breeding expertise and workforce of the latter has been irreversibly siphoned away. Several families coming from mountain areas have settled in the lowlands, maybe only a hundred miles away from their original villages, converting what was a pattern of seasonal and transhumant migration into permanent settlement. They have set up farms of their own or are employed 9

The production of embryos of predetermined sex is described on the LTR website as a fact of the ‘near future’ (www.ciz.it). 10 Galileo could not be progeny-tested or used for semen production both because of its sterility and because animal cloning was banned by Italian law—if not for breeds at risk of extinction or with direct implications for human therapy—at the time of its birth, see Galli & Lazzari (2001a,b). 11 See Galli et al. (2003).

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in big concerns as milkers, cow-tenders or lay inseminators. Lowland farms have a fundamental logistical advantage over mountain farming as they deal with flat pastures, no woods and easy access both to industrial agricultural services (machinery, fodder and semen) and to dairies for selling their milk. This makes mountain farming uneconomical, if it were not for structural aid and recent measures investing in niche dairy products such as high-pasture cheese. Mountain farmers’ success in getting funds and licences is often down to information and paperwork obtained through personal contacts in the trade unions or in the Regional and Province Administrations. Due to the uncertainty of their economic and social survival, trade union representatives, APA controllers and breed experts often develop trusting relations with those assisted. As Herzfeld (1997, p. 136) puts it, relationships of trust arise in situations of continuing uncertainty (see also Gambetta, 1988, p. 218). Some technical officers may take it upon themselves to act as intermediaries between farmers and local administrators, inquiring about situations of need and advising farmers about newly advertised funding opportunities, sometimes in exchange for gifts or political allegiance. This makes them powerful and charismatic figures, even though only locally. For instance, it is not uncommon that such respected characters leave their institutions of reference (whether it is the trade union or the breeders’ association) and set themselves up as selfemployed professionals when they feel that they can break away from their professional hierarchies. The farmers often continue to follow their advice and may well sever or weaken their links with the institutions that these professionals once belonged to. Local breeders may willingly participate in, and even share, the rationale behind processes of breed improvement and standardisation. Others may accept visits and advice from bureaucrats more reluctantly. This may vary greatly in relations of trust that may, or may not develop between breeders and representatives of the several agencies involved. For instance, contrary to the idea of breed selection through inbreeding (which is advocated by ANARB and its breed experts), some of the breeders I visited deliberately ‘play around’ with cross-breeding, crossing specimens of different breeds that are available in their own herds (usually Friesian, Alpine, Jersey, or Blue Belgian) instead of buying selected semen of progeny bulls of the breed to be improved (usually Brown, since this is predominant in mountain herds).12 During my ethnographic work I dealt with trade unionists, controllers of the breeders’ association, agricultural experts working for the province administration or the local Mountain Bureau, state vets and ANARB breed experts. Each have their own agenda, ranging from protecting the farmers’ union members’ rights and easing their access to funding, to enforcing the state’s duty to protect public health, to making sure that the province and region’s regulations on food processing, agricultural architecture and hygiene are abided by. The APA territorial offices are members of all the relevant national breeding associations (for Brown cows, Friesian cows, pigs, sheep, goats etc.), so there should be (and in some cases there is) a high degree of functional integration between them. Nevertheless, precisely because the areas of competence of these agencies often overlap, competition or mistrust between officers of different institutions is not uncommon, for reasons that may vary from personal interest to political allegiance. It is not uncommon 12 During my tour of Valtaleggio with the local vet, we met a breeder who confessed his delight in ‘seeing what comes out’ and discovering whether the crossbreed may turn out to be a good milk producer as well as a sturdy all-purpose cow (23 March 1999).

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for breed experts and controllers to begrudge political scheming within their agency, or bureaucratic inefficiency. The professional landscape of the ‘politics of advice’ presents a further problematic aspect: the proliferation of competences and discontinuity of presence on the territory. Agencies offering technical services to farmers should be collaborating but are also potentially competing. Moreover, local and regional administrations often fund ad hoc projects for mountain agriculture that depend on the technical assistance of agencies such as the agricultural trade union or the breeders’ associations. Objectives vary from fighting mastitis, controlling the bacteria and cell count in milk, or reintroducing traditional breeding techniques such as fattening calves by natural suckling. Often such projects and the corresponding offices (such as a ‘Centre for Services to Agriculture’ that was active during the time of fieldwork) may be set up and run for a few years only to be then dismantled for lack of funding. Such projects are often the first port of call for young graduates of veterinary science or agronomy in search for employment, but trust developed between farmers and young consultants is often weakened when the latter disappear from the local territory to move on to a different project-based job. Working with the same farmers, of course, will become more difficult for the next young graduate down the line, however useful the project she may be part of.13 Projects involving milk quality controls or data-gathering about farm sizes, assets and working routines may well be perceived as having a hidden agenda, especially when the results are not returned and explained to the farmer by the same person who has gathered the data. In fact data are often treated as gifts that can be entrusted only to personal acquaintances and, in the way indicated by Mauss (1950), should be reciprocated (for instance with useful feedback, or social recognition). Such a narrow relationship between personal knowledge and quality of the data is open to abuses. One of the rumours I heard in the field is that some trusted technical consultants ‘advise’ farmers out of personal interest, obtaining their adhesion to projects managed by themselves or persuading them to commission unnecessary studies and quality tests. Conflicts and confrontations are always possible, either between farmers and one particular agency or between agencies. These often ensue as the result of mismatches between perceived needs and the actual implementation of strategies that are avowedly aimed at sustaining locality. Moreover, many roles—farmer, breed expert, vet—may coexist in one person. In fact, most breed experts are first and foremost farmers, often with a limited formal education but with special motivation and a personal interest in breed selection. The formal training of breed experts is relatively speedy: every two years ANARB runs a course including an entry test, an illustration of technical notions (over two days), one day of practical exercise (a mock evaluation and mock cattle fair judging which takes place in a farm), followed by an exam (theory and practice) and an apprenticeship of at least five days. This can actually take a relatively longer time (from Autumn to Spring) since it involves following an expert on his scheduled visits to registered sheds, and attending cattle fairs side by side with the judges.14 Admission to the body of experts is hence mainly a question of acknowledging an expertise that the candidate is likely to have picked 13 For an ethnography of relationships between technical agronomists and peasants in western Mexico, see Arce & Long (1993). 14 ANARB’s body of experts counts six national breed inspectors (all men), eighteen national breed experts (all men) and ninety-nine province breed experts (ten of which are women). Data available on the ANARB web site (www.anarb.it), updated 1 December 2005.

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up and developed by one’s own initiative, by apprenticeship to a family farm and by frequentation of cattle fairs. The formality of training and exams was in fact only introduced in 1979, prior to which one’s role as breed expert was gained by personal acquaintance with other breed experts and by attending the associations meetings. Experts and technicians hold a type of knowledge that needs constant updating. For instance, the training of breed experts does not stop once they learn how to distinguish cows’ traits and to measure them up according to tables (something I learned myself in a few days). Their expertise increases with the constant practice of comparison, and with a constant update of the standards of excellence as new champions are presented at cattle fairs and new production peaks are established. Moreover, ‘managing’ cows also means adapting one’s expertise to the changing conditions brought about by the results of breed selection: bigger and more productive animals need especially nutritive diets and more comfortable and sheltered accommodation. Breed improvement hence lends itself to the ‘bureaucratisation’ of farming, since so many aspects of herd management are intertwined with the logistics and labour division of each farming enterprise. This will become evident from the following section. For the moment, I hope to have illustrated that there is a host of agencies that deal with the aims, scope and implementation of reproductive technologies; that the role of the functionaries is easily blurred and largely defined by context, and that there is ample scope for local negotiations, resistance and conflict. 3. Setting the context: life on a mountain farm The family that hosted me runs a farm with about sixty acres of land. During the summer, their herd graze on ‘high pastures’ covering about six hundred acres. Their main occupation is breeding milking cows, of the Italian Brown breed. Unlike most families of the valley, which are only involved in agriculture part-time, the farm is their only source of income. Kinship ties within the family have been enforced and exploited to the good of the common enterprise: all four sons are married but live either in the elders’ house or in the same hamlet, none has a separate income. Labour division between the family members becomes crucial in the summer, as haymaking on the village fields overlaps with the grazing season in the high pastures. While two men are busy tending the two separate herds of milking cows and heifers on the pastures, two others operate the grass-cutters on the low pastures, helped by the women. The only male grandchild, by now (2006) a teenager, is fully involved in the running of the farm. The family’s herd counted about 100 cattle in 1998 (divided between about fifty milking cows, about forty heifers and ten calves). It now (2006) counts more than 160 bovine units including milking and dry cows, heifers and calves. From the introduction of the Brown Swiss variety in 1980, the farm production of milk has risen to a confirmed and constant average of 6,300 kilograms per cow per suckling period at the time of fieldwork (1998), with an average protein titre of 3.4% and fat of 3.8%. Since then, the protein content has risen up to a peak of 3, 82% and 4.3% fat (in 2002). Nowadays (2006) the average production is of 30 litres of milk per cow per day (it was 24 litres in 1996). Increased milk production has meant adjusting the cows’ diet, and introducing a twelve-cubic-metre ‘Unifeed’ cart to mix the ingredients of the ration and distribute it (hay, maize, alfa-alfa grass, fodder, vitamins and bicarbonate, in changing ratios according to the season and following the advice of a nutritionist). This confirms how investing in breed selection can only be a long term strategic objective for a mountain farm, as it involves not only

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increasing the animals’ productivity and their individual size (and often their number), but also converting the whole practice of animal husbandry and related on-farm activities to meet the herd’s new nutritional and accommodation needs. So, for instance, although far from matching industrial farms, the family has acquired over the recent years a complete set of machinery to aid various phases of their toil, which is not at all the norm in mountain farming. Managing the manure accumulating in the wells of the 1998-built new shed has meant acquiring a separator (liquid and solid), a tanker, a piler and a spreader. In terms of space, the farm enlargement also meant building a new stable in 1981, then renting another one and finally constructing a second larger modern stable in 1998. This was not only dictated by the increased numbers in the herd: selected cows are not only more productive but bigger, and the resting surface allocated to them in traditional sheds is much too short. Milking is a job occupying at least two members of the family every single day twice a day, at 5 a.m. and at 5 p.m. With the portable machine in use in the old shed, milking fifty cows, two at a time, took two hours. In the new milking parlour six cows can be milked at any one time and milk is conveyed directly to a fridge-freezer, where it is stored to be collected by the co-op refrigerated truck. The milking parlour displays the quantity of milk produced and reckons each cow’s daily production, allowing the farmer to assess the rise and ebb of the cow’s lactating cycle and adjust her diet accordingly. From November through to May, milking cows don’t graze on the mountain pastures and hay production from local fields only covers 60% of the need. This is why grazing in the summer on the high pastures is logistically very important to the running of the farm: the feeding costs drop for up to one third of the year. Secondly, cheese produced on the pastures is highly valued, because of its peculiar taste, the artisanal conditions of its production and its scarcity, so it may be sold for cash to tourists. Taking the herd to the ‘alp’ (the high pastures) involves a gradual movement uphill and back during the hottest months of the year, over about three to four months (in this case over two intermediate stations, reaching the altitude of 1,900 metres, where the cattle is left on the pastures overnight and only brought under cover for milking). This seasonal journey is the remnant of an actual tradition of transhumance, which shifted herds yearly from the lowlands to the Alps (Aime & Allovio, 2001). To this day, mountain farmers not only take their own herd to the high pastures but also tend other cattle on behalf of breeders who send them up in trucks from the lowland, paying a fixed daily charge. The hosts are in charge of inseminating the heifers: this involves detecting the heifer’s heat and performing artificial insemination with appropriate bull semen on the high pastures, using frozen semen, which is transported, in nitrogen-refrigerated bins. Two members of the family are patented lay inseminators and perform this task.15 Kinship and labour division, as well as logistics and technological equipment determine both the daily and the seasonal practice of breeding. The ‘improvement’ of a farm’s livestock through breed selection often entails, as seen above, a progressive standardisation and technification of the farming practice. Breed selection has introduced many novelties 15 Only vets could perform artificial insemination until the national breeders’ associations lobbied the regional authorities to introduce more liberal regulations (Lombardy was one of the first to introduce them in the 1970s). Now lay inseminators operate on the same contractual level as specialised agricultural workers (butchers or cheese-makers) with a diploma obtained after a short training course and after practising in the abattoir under a vet’s supervision.

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to farm work, in particular the need for professional specialisation amongst family members (in artificial insemination, nutrition, herd management). Logistics and infrastructure are called into play by breed selection as well: the need for reliable transport connections (for instance for semen provision) as well as the need to liaise with a number of agencies and operators that can provide advice on rations, insemination and veterinary interventions. On the basis of this, I now wish to present in detail some examples of how the ‘reproductive knowledge’ conveyed by these experts is appropriated, managed and applied in the numerous occasions of exchange between farmers and professional operators. 4. Trust and professional knowledge APA and ANARB officers are the farmers’ most immediate referents in matters of artificial selection and herd management, as they visit registered farms on a regular basis, in order to evaluate the conformation and the productive performance of cattle of selected descent, gathering data for the national herd-book. From a methodological point of view, visiting farms with them can highlight many nuances about how reproductive knowledge is actually explained, implemented, managed, negotiated, and inculcated. A breed expert (from ANARB, or, according to the breed that the farm specialises in, from other national breeding associations) is often accompanied by an APA ‘controller’, a technician in charge of keeping the farm’s herd-book, providing bull semen on request and advising on nutrition. ANARB breed experts assign a score to each cow in her first lactation, on the basis of her morphology, while the APA controller gathers data on the same cow’s milk production and quality. As seen above, breed experts are mostly farmers. From ‘province expert’ they may be co-opted by the Steering Committee as ‘national expert’ and even breed ‘inspector’, advancing up the association’s hierarchy. Likewise, most of the ‘controllers’ employed in the APA local offices come from a farming background or are active breeders themselves. As I explained above, I toured several farms in the provinces of Bergamo and Brescia, first with one of my host’s sons acting as a breed expert for ANARB, then with a breed inspector, A. P., evaluating cattle in Val Brembana (including Valtaleggio). They highlighted and confirmed the problems raised by the introduction of selected, ‘improved’ animals in traditional farming contexts, where local operators were not inclined to rethink their whole breeding practice. In A. P.’s own words, the best champions prized at cattle fairs are in fact like ‘postcards’: you can blow on them and they fall over. They look beautiful until they give birth, then they exhaust themselves in the task of milk production. That’s why you need to change the nutritional strategies as well as enhancing the genetics of the bloodline, otherwise you spend a lot of money on outstanding specimens which don’t last long. A profitable implementation of reproductive knowledge requires therefore a certain cultural disposition, ‘a change of mentality’: animal husbandry must be transformed from a traditional subsistence practice into an entrepreneurial profession (as my hosts had done). Consequently, APA and ANARB officers expressed damning opinions about local cattledealers: they do not motivate the farmers to ‘improve’ the ‘genetic basis’ of their whole herd but instead entice them into buying outstanding specimens that they could never breed out of their farm’s stock. The beautiful cow becomes a trophy, an ad hoc treat to parade at local cattle fairs, whose bloodline gets ‘wasted’ on a worthless sire, or exhausts

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herself in milk production without appropriate nutrition, until she is good for the abattoir. From this example one understands the different social composition and cultural inclination of the farming operators in the lowlands and in the mountains of northern Italy. Farming became an entrepreneurial activity after World War II. Lowland enterprises have had to stand the competition of big agricultural businesses and have had the advantage of easy logistics. In the mountains, farming and herding has historically been the second option to seasonal migration and to specialisation in crafts such as carpentry, smithies, charcoal production, logging, mining and masonry (see Viazzo, 1989). Then, it has ‘benefited’ from controversial aid programs such as ‘cash for culling’ that sought to motivate small producers to give up breeding altogether, in favour of more manageable and standardised herd concentrations. Once again logistics makes a crucial difference to the implementation of reproductive knowledge in the field. Especially if engaged in the summer grazing season in isolated locations, which can only be reached by footpaths or trails, farmers often prefer to keep a bull since they cannot be guaranteed access to semen when they need to inseminate their heifers. A farmer/breed inspector (as the two figures often coincide) often ends up ‘embodying’ reproductive knowledge as his/her advice and judgement matches his/her personal experience on the farm. In fact, the exchange of information and opinions between experts often takes the form of anecdotal knowledge: ‘I know a guy who bought a cow like this : : :’, ‘I have tried bull such and such but : : :’, ‘judge X evaluated cow Y as . . . at the fair such and such : : :’. Such ‘personal ownership’ of professional knowledge is often displayed in conversations with trusted and esteemed peers. Each expert will explain his knowledge in his own terms, drawing on his own vocabulary and often making use of dialect, while a more formal register is used in conversation with ‘newcomers’ such as newly registered farmers. For example, when we visited a newly registered farm with fifteen cows, the breed inspector found himself in the unusual role of explaining to the breeders the mode and objectives of his visits. He had to explain what he was doing in their farm and for which purposes. The inspector began on a defensive line, explaining that his work did not mean to intrude and should be trusted. He flagged up the overall ‘cause’ of breed selection and its success: If we find very big heifers, with wide torsos and good limbs, the father gains points for stature and structure. If we find cows with very good udders, it means that that bull improves the udder. But we need a high number of daughters [to determine this statistically]. This is why we go around giving scores. We need at least twenty daughters per bull, in fifteen different farms, in order to test a bull. Usually we assess more than forty daughters per bull, which is sufficient for monitoring [the bull’s performance] : : : So when we come to weigh your milk it’s not for the sake of weighing your milk, you could do it yourself, but it’s to control the milk quality, i.e. fat, protein and casein. This is why we do this job. Often people see us and say, ‘God knows what they are after’. We gather data. Today we have very strong Italian bulls because we have a very high production and morphologically high-ranking cows. This is why we do it. (Video-recorded 30 March 1999) The following lines were more dismissive: he implied that the herd was as a whole was worthless, but that he could tell at first sight that at least one exemplar was superior. The cow he was pointing at was a daughter of a progeny bull called Strebal. The cow was in fact the biggest in the shed, so that she could hardly fit into her post. She had been bought

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pregnant, but the farmer did not have her file, nor a record of the insemination. The inspector was trying to send a message: ‘you have bought a very good cow. You should be aware of it and inseminate her with very good semen’: This is a newly registered farm, therefore we now give a score to all of your cows, whose daughters will be able to hand down traits. We don’t know anything about these cows, father, mother etc.—unless we tested their blood group and DNA, but they are not worth the effort. Cows bought from registered farms are already registered. This one for instance is certainly a Strebal, one of the five best bulls in the world. His data have already been reconfirmed four or five times. It is a very good bull for milking cows, especially to increase the milk protein content. A good bull. This one is a good cow, with a good udder but the teats are too long. Very well structured, with high and wide attachments and a good ligament, the only problem is her teats for dimension and direction: they tend to diverge. About the milking performance of each cow, we have to ask you, whether it’s fast, normal or slow. As the farmer began to reply, what followed was a typical exchange between two types of worldviews at work: the expert tried to explain why one cow in particular was far superior to another (the ‘old type’), while the farmer’s replies drew on different criteria to evaluate her worth (‘she has given birth seven times, she is fourteen, and she is still in production’): A. P.: Milking traits are noticeable from how clean the bones are. A cow producing milk must have very flat and clean bones. So for instance I have given this one here only 70 points for milking traits, whereas this other gets 83–84 points for milking traits, as she has got lean withers and very wide torso, as opposed to this chubby one. The former is how the latter could look like when she is dry, eight or nine months into pregnancy. A wet cow that looks like that has no milking potential. Farmer: She has been wet for six months now. A. P.: And how much does she yield? F.: Well you know, she’s old. A. P.: Well exactly, it’s the old type. F.: She is fourteen years old. A. P.: Udder height must be on average 10 cm. above the hock. How many times has she given birth? F.: Seven. The final exchanges confirm the distance between the two positions: the inspector wishes to explain thoroughly his morpho-functional evaluation and tries to recommend some progeny bulls for the insemination of the best cow, while the breeder (an elderly woman) finally resorts to dialect and turns to me to express her frustration: A. P.: The form of the udder is alright, front attachment, width and so on [as he pinches the ligament]. Her problem is the height and length of the teats : : : Can you see here below what it all means? A score from 90 to 100 is excellent, between 85 and 89 is very good, etc. The udder counts for 40% of the score, all the other traits for 15% each. Why did we decide so? Because it’s from the udder that you milk twice a day. With all these little numbers we highlight the defects, to be fixed genetically with the right bulls. And with these numbers we understand how the bull has

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performed. Anyway you have good cows. The best is this Strebal, I did not give her a score because she has surely been registered in Bolzano, where you bought it. Strebal is very good for dorsal line, torso width : : : You should choose carefully how to inseminate her. I’ll write it down for you. Zoldo, to improve the teats. Do you receive our magazine, Razza Bruna? F.: Well, yes, I don’t know. A. P.: Cross Sonia with Einstein. Or Gordon, I’ll note them down for you. Zoldo, Playboy, Gordon. Well, we have assessed eleven cows then. Now I’ll print out the results for you. Do not look at the little numbers at the back, it’s for us, otherwise you’ll get confused. F.: There is no risk of me getting confused because I don’t get it at all. I am really cut off, me [in dialect]. Although the breed inspector tried to use a clear and precise language to explain his job, the farmer was confused by the whole procedure and by the specialist language. His precise descriptions did not improve her understanding. In fact, only after a prolonged apprenticeship and exposure to the discourse of the breed selection do farmers revel in the jargon and display a practical understanding of it in their choices of artificial insemination. In their jargon, they make widespread use of the adjective ‘genetic’ even when this does not apply strictly speaking to the theory and practice of artificial insemination and herd improvement. For a keen apprentice, the encounter with a breed inspector is the occasion for exchanging information and displaying mutual trust and esteem. So, for instance, if the farmer we were visiting was a breed expert or training to become one, A. P. would encourage him to propose himself a score for a cow. If disagreeing, he would explain why: ‘this trait is in fact as good as you say, but in the overall performance of the animal this other counts more : : :’. On one occasion we visited a farm that had obviously invested on breed selection, as the whole herd displayed prominent udders, mighty proportions and ideal teats for machine-milking. The shed had been fitted with ample posts, for cows of considerable size. Unlike previous mountain farmers, this breeder was obviously breed-literate. The inspector, like a good teacher, encouraged him to anticipate the score of the cows he was evaluating, and then explained and discussed the score with him. The farmer complained that some cows in particular were not in as good shape as they had been a few months before. Some of this was genuine teaching and learning, some was bargaining. Knowing that the market price of his cattle is tied to the evaluation given by the breed inspector, a farmer would try to score a high mark for his cows. Or, he would claim that the animal was having health problems. In some cases A. P. would agree to postpone the evaluation, since the animal was obviously sick or weakened by birth-giving. The inspector gave advice as to which semen should be used on which heifers, and took his leave promising that he would ‘keep an eye’ on this farm to select specimens to send to the next international exhibition of the Brown Breed. In sum, professional knowledge about breed-improvement is personalised and appropriated by professional operators. Its circulation in the daily exchanges with breeders and peers leaves ample space for power relations and the exercise of personal charisma. In general the contexts in which such professional knowledge is disseminated and reinforced is highly permeable to context, in particular to the nuances of pre-existing relationships of trust, friendship, kinship or hierarchy. In what follows I shall highlight the many

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ambivalences and negotiated compromises that coexist in the practice of applying ‘reproductive knowledge’ to breed selection. 5. Translating animals into numbers The breed inspector’s activity that we have followed in the previous section is aimed at gathering data for ANARB’s ‘genetic centre’. This does not gather or ascertain genomic knowledge, but rather carries out ‘performance tests’ on young bulls who, on the basis of their descent from good producers (cows) and/or reproducers (bulls), can be admitted to progeny tests. Located in Verona, the centre aims at tailoring breed selection towards the production of quality milk, that is, with high protein content and rich in different types of casein (which makes the milk particularly suitable for cheese production). It manages both bulls and data regarding them: in order to do so it comprises both offices for elaborating data and a farm, hosting between seventy to eighty bulls at any one time. Here bulls aged between six and thirteen months are quarantined and then subjected to performancetests where their weight, morphology and reproductive capacity is checked. To be ‘progeny tested’ a bull’s semen must have been ‘tried’ by artificial insemination on at least fifteen daughters (that is, fifteen heifers must have given birth to female calves who in turn must have begun their first lactating cycle). A highly reliable progeny test (marked as 99% reliability) means that two to three hundred daughters have been produced and evaluated (both morphologically and in terms of productivity). On average, a good progeny test relies on data from sixty to seventy daughters. Once certified as ‘improver’, semen from one bull can be used for several years, the most popular bulls producing thousands of daughters. There are other ‘genetic centres’ of Brown bulls than the one managed by ANARB. Each tests its own bulls, whose data are then processed and listed nationally by ANARB. Each genetic centre distributes bull semen for a fee, and there is a thriving commercial market in which different consortiums compete with each other. Specialist magazines such as Razza Bruna host plenty of graphic advertisements for bull semen. The knowledge that ensues from such ‘genetic centres’ is compiled in listings of bulls of commendable pedigree and good conformation, whose female offspring are expected to be sound, to yield quality milk in great quantity, and to be good reproducers in their turn. Such expectation is checked against the statistical production performance of their offspring. Each reproducer is then ranked by a ‘total economic index’ (ITE), which operators in the trade refer to as the ‘genetic index’ It must be stressed, then, that a bull is ranked by an index that is determined by the performance of his female offspring. In other words, reproducers must issue good (female) milk producers. ANARB publishes its magazine’s supplement, Conoscere i tori (Knowing Bulls) providing classifications of the best tested bulls whose semen is on the market (these listings are updated tri-monthly on the basis of incoming data about the milk production of the bulls’ female offspring). Since its inception, breed improvement was a site of controversy and compromise between the ideological celebration of morphology and pedigree on the one hand, and genuine utilitarian considerations on the other (Ritvo, 1987, pp. 45–81). Breed experts help breeders in producing animals whose shape corresponds to an ideal blueprint. Their practice of examining cattle is based on the conviction that relevant individual ‘traits’ of this model can be improved through breed selection by pure breed—hence the name of ‘morpho-functional evaluation’. Such morphological evaluations have in time been integrated with productivity tests and functionality measurements, which are now of paramount

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importance in determining the ‘total economic index’ (ITE). The factors taken into consideration in the composition of the ITE are determined for each breeding association by their steering committees. In the case of ANARB, these are: milk production (especially fat and protein content), functional longevity, milking speed and morphology (especially mammary and structural conformation). Determining the ‘weight’ of one factor rather than another is an important strategic decision for the evolution of the breed since the ‘pool’ of reproducers favoured in one case rather than the other is likely to issue offspring with (more of) one trait rather than the other. For instance, the model determining how much each factor ‘weighs’ in the composition of the ITE was updated in May 2005, with the introduction of milking speed with an impact factor of 12% on the ITE.16 In sum, it is more of a manifesto than a certainty that such knowledge is ‘genetic’. It is in fact based on the statistical measurement of the average performance of the offspring of progeny bulls and heifers. In fact, it is not guaranteed that ‘peak’ traits will be automatically handed down to each specimen in the next generation. Investing in reproducers is akin to investing in the stock exchange: several factors may undermine a reasonably expected outcome, depending on how (and if) results follow from ‘potentials’. When I asked whether ‘genetics’ is the right word for this discourse of breeding, one of my key informants, a member of my host family who has been an ANARB breed expert for twenty-five years and is now ranked as ‘national’ expert, told me that ‘if a bull hands down certain traits it must have to do with DNA’. When confronted with published data from the national association of the Friesian Breed (ANAFI17) which show that the inheritability of morphological traits averages only 15%, up to a maximum of about 30% for traits such as ‘udder depth’ or ‘dairy form’, he insisted that to get the best results from excellent reproducers (cow and bull) ‘you need to have a good genetic basis to start with. If you cross an exceptional bull with a cow whose family is unworthy, you cannot expect excellent results. But you can still obtain a perceptible quality boost’. Analogously, a young agronomist working for the farmers trade union explained to me once the ‘it is a genetic law that the daughters will be better than the mother’. In fact, the widespread use of the word ‘genetic’ in the publications, web sites and discourse of the breeders who subscribe to the programmes of breed selection by inbreeding (‘genetic indexes’, ‘programmes of genetic selection’, ‘genetic capital’, ‘genetic basis’ ‘genetic quality’, and so on) expresses their agenda to make reproductive choices about one’s herd more and more ‘mathematical’ and ‘scientific’ and less and less a matter of ‘gamble’, ‘good fortune’ or ‘breeder’s instinct’.18 In particular, the popularisation of the total economic index of a reproducer as a ‘genetic index’ is not straightforward. In an official publication celebrating one hundred years of activity of the Swiss Federation of the Brown Breed (Braunvieh) one reads: the objective of estimating genetic indexes is to classify cows and bulls as to their genetic predisposition. This simple definition is coherent with the possibilities of statistics: even with the most refined estimating methods it is not possible to foresee 16

It is claimed that the introduction of milking speed as a factor of breed selection will spare the breeders one minute of milking time per cow in ten years time (Ghiroldi & Nicoletti, 2005). 17 These are ‘parameters for genetic basis’ of the Italian Friesian association, published on the ANAFI web site (www.anafi.it) and updated February 2006. 18 For a complementary viewpoint on thoroughbred horse-breeding, and particularly on the soundness of choices based on pedigree, conformation or ‘divination’, see Cassidy (2005).

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one’s specific milk production. Only differences between animals are correctly estimated. Nevertheless the limited possibilities of science do not impede the use of genetic indexes in practice. After all, it is always about making a classification or a comparison between animals: is it better for me to buy cow Resli or Bluemli? Is it better to have in my farm bull Rino or Mairo? (Casanova, 1997, pp. 92–93). In other words, ‘genetics’ is of use in as much as one can measure a performance and have a reasonable expectation to be able to hand down the predisposition and the same or better performance to the next generation.19 In the words of the breed inspector A. P.: If I have ten primipare [cows at their first lactation] in my shed, all genetically high ranking due to their fathers : : : when they go into production, the one that produces more milk with the highest quality is the one with the highest genetic index. (A. P., 1 April 1999) He then stressed that what defines milk quality is a high protein content (which, physiologically, usually comes along with a high fat count, though he stressed that, compared to proteins, ‘fat counts nought’): I mean, if I have five heifers yielding say 5,000, 6,000, 7,000 and 8,000 kilograms each, if the one giving 6,000 has a much higher count in fat and protein, that one is genetically stronger than the one that gives 8,000 with, say, 3.2% protein and 3.7% fat. One that gives 7,000 kilograms and 3.8–3.9% protein with 4.2% fat is economically much better than one that gives 8,000 with lower fat and protein. What count are high fat and protein contents. It is from such comparisons that you obtain the genetic index. As national inspector of the Brown breed, A. P. is one of the foremost-acknowledged experts in breed selection in his professional community, acting as judge in cattle fair competitions at the highest levels. Yet he only completed mandatory school20 and his explanations about genetics, breed selection and genetic indexes are very down-to-earth. His rendering of a ‘genetic index’ is pragmatic: it is the potential to yield good milk in plentiful quantities—a potential that is inherited, but also checked time and again against actual performance, longevity, and the way in which a farmer can facilitate good performance by good herd management: It is the father who gives the kick to the genetic index. Say Jetwin’s daughter rather than Blend’s daughter, they get a different kick : : : See, every cow is ranked. This one is ranked 99.5. What does it mean? It means that Emory after Mariano, i.e. the index given by Emory (father) siring Bella (mother), whose father was Mariano, gives a rank of 99.5. This rank means that this cow is considered to fall within the best 0.5% of its breed. But this is just a potential of the heifer, given exclusively by her father and mother. It is a hypothetical indication, measured in terms of rank and ITE. And it is only reliable at 55%. When this heifer gives birth and goes into 19 According to the same publication, the inheritability of ‘productivity’ traits is much higher than the inheritability of morphological traits: around 32–33% for fat production and between 59 and 65% for protein production: Casanova (1997), p. 92. 20 The mandatory school-leaving age in Italy for his generation was 14 years old, comprising five years’ ‘elementary’ school and three years’ ‘intermediate’ school.

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production, it may well be that by comparison with another heifer she will prove worthless. This is not because she produces less than the other. She can make 10,000 kilograms or 7,000 kilograms. What I want is that she yields milk that is high in protein and fat titres. Right? Such quality standards are themselves negotiated conventions: when butter and fat dairies were welcomed into the European market as an important element in the daily diet and as a highly needed nourishing food for a postwar society, fat milk was ‘high quality milk’. Now that the western diet is more oriented toward skimmed and low-fat products, and that milk production, especially for small scale producers, is only rewarding if aimed at cheese-making, milk rich in protein is more suitable both for the consumer and for the producer: let’s say I have a heifer producing 100 and another that makes 85, it may be that the 85 is better than the other. The former produces more milk, but as far as ITE, if the latter gives quality milk, say 3.7% protein over one that gives 3.2%, even if she produces less, she is economically more rewarding, right? Translated into money: now in Italy we are oriented to rewarding quality milk producers : : : When you reckon up rank, production, quality and the rest altogether, then you get the Indice Totale Economico (ITE). This is a number, and we call it ‘the genetic index’. The so-called genetic index is hence the result of a pragmatic calculus, combining the cow’s pedigree and her actual performance in the milking parlour. Reproductive knowledge therefore takes the form of assessing and ‘translating’ animals into numbers: the breed experts assign scores to the cow’s traits and key them into portable computers that calculate her ‘morphological index’; the APA controller verifies data about descent and production. Compiled and compared, these numbers are published in long listings on dedicated web sites and breeding magazines. In the process, bloodstock becomes a commodity: these tables guarantee its mobility and exchangeability because of the power to enforce comparisons at distance.21 Nevertheless, an ambivalent compromise between morphology and productivity is constantly at play. On the one hand, considerable logistical effort and professional reputation is involved in the job of the breed expert: partitioning the cow’s body into ‘traits’, which are assessed against a morphological blueprint (the udder counting as the most important one). On the other hand, what really counts for the farmer is the capacity of this udder to produce ‘quality’ milk—and the definition of ‘quality’ milk depends on contingent market trends, such as the current preference for high protein content rather than fat content. The introduction of ‘functional’ considerations was the result of a concerted effort towards the increase of herd productivity, with the introduction (after World War II) of official milk production controls, of certified herd-books ascertaining the descent of each specimen in every farm, and the recording of mother’s and grandmother’s production levels in the registries of every cow. In its turn, the morphological ‘blueprint’ of breed selection has long been the object of adjustments and negotiations. Firstly, the desirable ‘form’ 21

‘Shift’, ‘translation’, ‘delegation’, ‘displacement’: I believe that Bruno Latour’s vocabulary for the incorporation of scientific, economic and social agendas into socio-technical networks applies well to this case of ‘inscription’ as a successful ‘technological mediation’ (Latour, 1994) that make things shareable, hence public (Latour & Weibel, 2005).

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and the desirable sex differ according to the different aims of breeding (such as producing milk rather than meat).22 Secondly, morphological evaluations progressively took more and more into consideration ‘functional’ aspects: for instance the historical evolution of the blueprint saw the disappearance of horns from prized cattle (which caused considerable resistance amongst traditional breeders well into the 1960s). Since 1965 the Swiss Federation of Brown Cattle established that cows would only be evaluated during lactation; in 1968 the Italian association of Brown breeders decided to take into account solely ‘functional’ traits (namely relevant to milk production) omitting ‘aesthetic’ considerations such as the fineness of the skin (the Swiss followed in 1976); in 1995 the American ‘linear module for morpho-functional evaluation’ (introduced in the eighties) was adopted by all European associations.23 Finally, as an appreciation that ‘functional’ shapes are a better guarantee for the animal’s health and longevity despite sustained production levels, the morphological index has entered the composition of the total economic index (but only very recently: the first listings with the new composite indexes were published by ANARB in May 2006). At the time of fieldwork, instead, morphological evaluations were only partially connected with the composition of the total economic index. Farmers took their decisions according to their short-term or long-term objectives, such as investing in production rather than improving the morphology and maybe obtaining a one-off cattle fair champion: C. G.: So what has your morphological evaluation got to do with the genetic index? A. P.: Of the morphological scores I give to cows, only the figures pertaining to the udder are considered for the ITE. That is, only the data for attachment, width and height, ligament and all that. All the rest also goes into the reckoning of the ITE but it counts little, it is weighed differently than the udder scores. What counts are the father’s index and the production quality. In the words of the elder son of my host family, who won several local cattle fairs as well as increasing the farm’s production: A. L.: . . . the Association had to appreciate that their selection was leaving space for productive animals with physical defects, whereas a farmer wants a beautiful cow. But some were choosing bulls who ameliorate production at the cost of morphology: for instance Vincent produced high-yielding cows but ugly. The request of the breeders was to have more solid cows. In any case you were always free to choose your bull, as morphological indexes were always available but kept separate from considerations about production. (24 July 2006) The goal of breed improvement is hence a cow capable of sustaining a production of tens of hundreds of kilograms of milk a year, with protein contents calculated (and accordingly paid for) down to one tenth of a per cent—any morphological consideration must be 22 It was as late as 1977 that the Swiss Federation of Brown Cattle abandoned the ‘dual type’ model to embrace the idea of a more milk-oriented morphology. 23 Morphology is assessed according to nineteen relevant traits: height, strength and vigour, torso width, angularity, dorsal line, back inclination, back angle and structural width; limbs, hock quality, pasterns and hooves; udder front attachment, udder width at the back, udder height, udder width and ligaments, teats placement and their length. The ‘morphological index’ of the cow is a weighted average of these traits (where milking traits and udder weigh more than body structure or limbs).

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functional. In the words of a high-ranking member of the Swiss federation of Brown Cattle breeders, ‘when presenting one’s animal, nowadays farmers mention firstly her father and not, as it happened in the previous decades, her morphological score’ (Eugster, 1997, p. 28). Yet, despite the breeder’s conception of morphology and productivity as two complementary but separate—and at times antithetic—goals, it must be said that a certain amount of morphological standardisation is necessary for the project of ‘translating’ animals into comparable ‘indexes’ (whether ‘morphological’ or ‘genetic’). Specimens that diverge too much for shape, size, descent, and even breeding context are incommensurable even from the point of view of the productivity. One has to start from a basis of sameness in order to calibrate the variables at play. So, for instance, in the history of the Swiss Brown, considerable efforts were spent at the turn of the twentieth century to homogenise eighteen local varieties into one ‘standard’ ‘Swiss Brown breed’. This was a commercial precondition for proposing the breed for export on the international market, especially since its productivity had raised interest from American breeders. Brown cattle had to be sufficiently standardised to be able to be assessed by the sole criteria of their robustness, longevity and especially productivity.24 In fact, breeders’ associations promoted cattle fairs as ‘didactic’ events to provide good examples and criteria to enforce the standardisation and homogeneity (and ultimately the identity) of the breed (see also Grasseni, 2007). To conclude, ‘genetic’ and ‘morphological’ indexes are not necessarily at odds but rather the latter contributes to determining the former. In fact, there seems to be no preconceived model cow but rather a pragmatic evaluation of one or more particular traits in context. Investment on distinct traits has to be considered in the context of a long-term entrepreneurial investment (see Section 3). In particular, the notion of ‘good form’ emerges from the breeding practice as a ductile ideal, informed by international standards but at the same time negotiated in concrete contexts. The concept of ‘breed’ remains of paramount importance, as I have showed elsewhere in relation to aesthetic and ethical attachment to one’s locale and tradition (Grasseni, 2004, 2005), but is in fact very much constructed—as the animal body itself—as a sedimentation of the different trends and negotiations about what good pedigree and good conformation actually amount to.

6. Conclusion I set out asking questions about how the standardising agenda of breed selection intersects with the peculiarities of marginal rural contexts. There is, in the farming contexts of the Alpine ridge, a cultural diversity that is visible in the practices of breeding and farming. In a sense, there is no technological gap as such between mountains and lowlands, since in abstract terms the same technologies are available on the market. Nevertheless, breeding in the mountains is a totally different practice from in the lowlands since it is much more labour intensive and costly. For instance, to have embryo transfer performed on one’s herd my mountain hosts must call a veterinary team from the lowlands, where there is higher demand for it. Likewise, the introduction of artificial insemination in the mountains as a standard practice required—from the late seventies onwards—changing the legal 24

Since the first Swiss Brown herd-book was published in 1879, only one variety has existed officially in Switzerland. Eugster (1997), pp. 11, 13–15.

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framework, training the professionals and ensuring the logistics of semen provision, as well as breaking a few taboos.25 The mountain/lowland contrast works more as a dichotomy at the level of models than of practice. In fact, some of the mountain breeders I studied were indeed ‘marginal’, and yet others had fully adopted the objectives and standards of intensive breeding. Those at the fringes, notably small breeders, are often unrepresented (as they do not join breedselection associations such as ANARB) and have no contractual power in defining the agenda of breed selection. Nevertheless, the plasticity of selective blueprints and the way these have to be contextually inscribed in a context leaves them a certain amount of leeway. Farmers at the margins can display outright disengagement, by cross-breeding in their own herds. But reproductive technologies could also be employed to salvage autochthonous breeds at risk of extinction, or to favour the production of cows yielding ‘high quality’ milk, suitable for cheese-production. In itself, reproductive technology is a tool for marginal breeders to either convert to intensive farming (following a model that few can afford to adopt) or to exploit the web of relations that come with the package in order to pursue an original profile as ‘sentinels’ of both their ‘genetic’ and cultural capital, ensuring, in the process, their own social reproduction. This ethnographic case has covered mainly the former agenda, which is to this day aggressively pursued both in the lowlands and in the mountains, despite the fact that European Union limitations to milk production makes the effort of intensive breeding, at least in mountain context, less and less sensible. Nevertheless, on the back of decade-long attention given to the issue of the social reproduction of the peasant class by neighbouring countries (for instance see Rossier & Wyss, 2006), technical and political agendas are now beginning to consider this in Italy as well (see Bianchi, Mimosi, Bataglini, & Ighina, 2004; Regnault, 2004). Social experiments with neo-rural incomers employing reproductive technologies to re-introduce autochthonous breeds, or creative combinations of part-time farming, didactic farming and ecotourism would deserve attention for a following study. For the moment, I hope to have shown that breeders’ ideas about worthy and beautiful cows are prone to be aggressively shaped by a socio-technical network (consultants, advisors, technicians, trade unionists, sharing the jargon and criteria of excellence celebrated in specialists’ magazines, listings of ‘genetic centres’, consortia and professional associations providing bull semen, herd-managing software, herd-book databases and so forth). Nevertheless, choosing the reproducers is ultimately a local and pragmatic calculus. The craftsmanship of ‘genetic’ evaluation makes use of lineages, morphology and statistics. It requires curiosity, good memory for often contradicting results and the capacity to integrate personal experience, hearsay, technical information from specialised journals and personal advice from trusted peers or functionaries. Understanding this side of reproductive technologies means appreciating the social dimension, the ‘ecology of culture’ so to speak, of a particular community of practice. So far anthropologists have done so with particular reference to sites of scientific practice on the one hand (Lynch, 1985), or studying professional expert practice on the other (Engestro¨m & Middleton, 1998). Here I have attempted to bring these perspectives together. An ethnography of the uses of reproductive knowledge and technologies in dairy-breeding practice, as a situated and socialised

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Eugster claims that AI was unpopular amongst Brown breeders throughout the sixties and seventies in Switzerland as well, and only took hold at the turn of the eighties. Eugster (1997), pp. 22–25.

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