A Chat with the Program Director of SVF

As I was pondering how to write my recent post about food animal biobanking, my fantastic friends Araina and Kate urged me to call SVF Foundation1. And in 15 minutes I learned a lot.

The “SVF” in SVF Foundation stands for Swiss Village Farm, and the foundation is specifically rooted in farming. That root, it turns out, is the quick explanation for the difference in SVF’s biodiversity focus and a zoo’s biodiversity focus (and thus my feelings of disappointment I mention in the previous post, as I am rooted in the zoo side of things).

SVF Foundation was founded about 13 years ago as a non-profit tasked with conserving the biodiversity of agriculturally important ruminates–so, cows, sheep, and goats. They are almost exclusively privately funded, though they do have some fun merch for sale.Continue reading →