What if all the animals suddenly died off but somehow we survived and WE NEEDED BURGERS? You can relax, because there’s a huge stockpile of animal sex-juice (700,000 samples from 18 species, in fact) we can use to Frankenstein that shit. Modern Farmer, everyone:
The National Animal Germplasm Program (NAGP) started in 1999. Its facility stores a huge mishmash of semen — rare and vintage samples, combined with the most common breeds on the market. Blackburn says the everyday strains are just as important as the heirloom semen, if not more so.
Let’s just take a second to say the word “germplasm” in our heads. OK, good. (Also, “huge mishmash of semen”? I know a Maury episode when I see one.)
So with its “rare and vintage samples,” the NAGP is basically the hipster record store of animal jizz. Heirloom tomatoes pale in comparison to “heirloom semen.” I don’t think it’s an exaggeration to say this artisanal cow spunk collection should probably be the eighth wonder of the world. Correction: cow, bison, elk, goat, sheep, pig, turkey, chicken, AND fish spunk.
So where does it all come from? Universities, companies and private collectors often donate semen to the NAGP … One woman in Broken Bow, Nebraska, had a rare breed of cattle dating back to the 1940s. “We called this farmer, asking for semen from her bulls,” Blackburn says. “She picked up the phone and said, ‘I thought you’d never call.’”
Poor lady. A freezer full of bull semen and nothing to do with it. I guess nobody gave her a copy of Natural Harvest: A Collection of Semen-Based Recipes.
