Approved Breeding Organisations

If you keep a herd-book as a breeding organisation, you can apply for accreditation. This is possible for equidae, cattle, buffaloes, sheep, goats and pigs. This makes it easier to trade in purebred animals and live products within European member states, such as semen, ova and embryos.

Export benefits

You do not need approval in order to keep a herd-book. It only indicates that the activities are done in the correct way. However, approval offers advantages when it comes to exporting animals to other countries.

Firstly, approval enables the right to enter an animal of the same breed in a herd-book. This promotes the free trade of breeding animals and their genetic material. This is important, because in most EU Member States, you may only breed an animal if it is registered with an approved herd-book organisation.

These organisations may issue official pedigree certificates which ensure an animal is purebred. This increases the value of the animal. For equine studbooks, approved herd-book organisations may issue equine passports. These passports include studbook data.

Approved breeding organisations

Do you want to know which breeding organisations are approved in the Netherlands? As required by law, we provide an overview of the approved breeding organisations in the Netherlands (please see the pdf in Dutch below), which keep herd-books for purebred breeding animals. This list also includes breeder's associations that keep breeding records for hybrid pigs. The overview provides you with the following information:

• Name of the organisation;
• Contact details;
• Breed;
• Geographical area in which the organisation is active.

The fact that a breeding organisation is approved does not mean that all of its breeding programmes have been approved. For this reason, the overview indicates which breeding programmes have been approved for each organisation. Every organisation must have at least one approved breeding programme.

Foreign breed societies active in the Netherlands

Foreign breed societies and breeding groups are active in the Netherlands. These societies and groups are recognized in their own member state and have obtained the approval to carry out their breeding program in the Netherlands.

For an overview of foreign breed societies, see the list Foreign breed societies active in the Netherlands.

Requesting extension breeding programme

Member states who are requesting extension of a breeding programme (art. 12 of the Animal Breeding Regulation) can contact the Dutch competent authority by email: fokkerij@rvo.nl. Please include a translated breeding programme (Dutch or English) and starting date for the breeding programme in the request.

Equal treatment in equestrian competitions

In equestrian competitions and events, unequal treatment is not allowed between purebred horses, ponies and donkeys. The overview Equal treatment in equestrian competitions shows which competitions and events are exempt.