Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding debates data plan

By David Selner

Debate over future dairy cattle genetic evaluations – especially the genomic portion of the estimates – highlighted a Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding meeting, April 18-19, in Milwaukee, Wis. 

The major organizations involved in genetic evaluations – the National Association of Animal Breeders (NAAB), national Dairy Herd Improvement Association (DHIA) and dairy breed associations – have been discussing a restructuring of the processes used to collect dairy phenotypic data, calculate genetic evaluations and release those evaluations to the general public. To date there has been no consensus on the restructuring, and many had hoped that the Milwaukee meeting would lead to some breakthroughs with a face-to-face meeting of all parties. 

Progress is being made, but there is still no absolute agreement as to the parameters of a new genetic evaluation system. 

DairyBusiness.com will soon be posting a draft of a proposed agreement between USDA and the industry cooperators on how USDA’s Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory (AIPL) staff will interact with the industry to provide research for the genetic evaluation process. 

Producers and industry representatives will be provided a contact list of individuals to submit comments on the draft agreement. After a comment period, the industry consortium will plan on finalizing the agreement with USDA.

The Council of Dairy Cattle Breeding will also be providing a proposed draft of a business plan on how the new evaluation structure will be funded. This will include the amounts of money the industry must provide for starting this system, as well as ongoing fees that would provide the funding for the operation of the evaluation system for the future. This will be the first opportunity for dairymen to see how this new system will affect their bottom lines. Industry comment will be invited.