“Selecting and reproducing farm animals in times of ecological disasters: modes of valuation of cattle livestock in Belgium and The Netherlands”

The field of livestock selection and reproduction has been going far into the economization of life and the convertibility of productivity factors into sound cur-rencies. However, farming practices are undergoing a lot of stresses; economic stress, climatic stress and social stress with cultured meat arising together with strong moral and ethical claims from vegetarian and vegan consumers. Farming institutions are trying to cope with these challenges and, in so doing, advocate other sets of values that would allegedly « remedy » what would be best described as a state of enduring disaster. Part of these responses partake with the scientific and rational endeavor livestock farming inherits from, especially with the prolonga-tion of genetics into genomics. While genetics afforded impressive increases in productivity, it has also led to exhaust living organisms, biodiversity in herds and environments. In this contribution, focusing on the case of cattle livestock selection and reproduction through genomics practices, we will unfold and contrast two dif-ferent modes of valuation that are more qualitative than qualitative. We will focus on cases of Belgium and The Netherlands, to show how different values such as the « heath » of herd animals or « the environment » are cast, defined, and enacted in practices of selection and reproduction. This will hint us into the variety of « modes of valuation » as both performative and ontological operations, which end up ma-terially shaping bovine bodies and rendering certain farming practices possible or impossible.