The demand for better cattle will never stop and hence the cattle breeder’s job is never done”. This point was recently made by American geneticist Dr Stephen Miller and it was strongly supported by Australian geneticist, Dr Robert Banks.

Stephen Miller is the current director of genetics at Angus Genetics Incorporated, a subsidiary of the American Angus Association, which has overseen huge genetic advancements in the US Angus herd since 2004.

His Australian counterpart Robert Banks is the current director of the animal genetics and breeding unit in the University of New England, Australia and has made significant contributions to the development of Breedplan, the Australian cattle breeding programme.

Stephen Miller. \ Robert Smith

I had the opportunity to listen to both men last week. Firstly, at the British Cattle Breeders Conference which took place in Shropshire, England.

Listen to "Stephen Miller, Director of genetics at Angus Genetics Inc" on Spreaker.

Over the course of the two-day conference, speakers and audience members did their best to steer clear of the topic of Brexit. ‘Don’t mention the B-word’ was a common greeting.

While UK farmers’ attitudes towards Brexit seem to vary, the general feeling is that they want somewhere in between EU membership and crashing out of Europe with no-deal. National Farmers Union president, Minette Batters was quick to point out that a no-deal Brexit would be “catastrophic” for UK agriculture with tariffs and cheap food imports having the ability to derail UK farming, almost overnight.

On the other hand, there is still a sense that the EU has held UK agriculture back, wrapping it up in a tight veil of rules and regulations.

Perhaps the conference theme ‘building a brand to promote our uniqueness’ sums up this viewpoint and suggests that UK agriculture may in fact be looking forward to ‘setting their own agenda’ post-Brexit as one speaker put it.

My second opportunity to listen to Dr Banks and Dr Miller was much closer to home, at an ICBF workshop which took place in Portlaoise later in the week.

A smaller affair but one filled with many well-known faces from the beef industry, from breed societies and a selection of commercial beef farmers.

Robert Banks. \ Robert Smith

Putting politics to one side, the message to both the UK and Irish audiences in terms of genetics was very clear: genetics work, they have been proven to work and the only questions farmers and breed societies should be asking is ‘how can faster, more valuable genetic progress be achieved?’

Challenges and opportunities facing breeds

Dr Robert Banks

Before highlighting the challenges of genomics to breeds and breed societies, Dr Robert Banks was quick to stress that genomics offers real opportunity for significantly faster and more valuable genetic progress.

“We are starting to see the practical evidence for this in beef breeds in Australia.

Listen to "Robert Banks, Australian geneticist" on Spreaker.

But now what about genomics? Implementation of genomic methods have changed the way we can use genetics

"The increases in accuracy of predicting progeny performance are substantial – up to 20% depending on breed and trait, meaning that stud breeders can select young bulls and heifers, with more accuracy for more traits, meaning faster and more valuable genetic progress is possible.”

However, Banks’ main objective was to point out some of the challenges and opportunities that breeds and breed societies could face with genetics.

“A core aspect of the pre-genomics era is that to determine the genetic merit of an animal, you have to record something about that animal such as its pedigree and performance,” he said.

“But now what about genomics? Implementation of genomic methods have changed the way we can use genetics.”

Genomics

He explained the basic features of genomic selection includes two things. Firstly, a reference population.

This is all animals with a genotype and some measure of performance, which can include an estimated breeding value (EBV) based on their progeny or other relatives’ performance.

Secondly, genetic analysis that incorporates pedigree, genotype and performance information, and which can therefore calculate EBVs for animals that only have genotypes. He highlighted that “once these two items are in place, animals outside the reference population can be genotyped and obtain useful EBVs.

The game-changing and possibly challenging aspect of this model, according to Banks, is the establishment and utilisation of a reference population which essentially means that anyone can draw on the reference data simply by genotyping an animal.

Banks said that “now breeders can achieve this by pulling tail hairs and submitting genotypes to the breed’s genetic evaluation”.

One immediately obvious consequence of that fact is the potential for free-riding, depending on who invests in the reference and on what terms others can access it.

Redefine

For Banks, the scope to redefine membership is a significant opportunity for breed societies, and one than can off-set this idea of free riding.

“Commercial producers, processors and even retailers and consumers can be seen as partners in data capture and therefore potentially new classes of members,” he said.

Sufficient numbers are not a fixed thing, but breeds should aim for 250-1,000 new animals recorded and genotyped per year

“For example, you could have a scenario whereby finishers could be paid specifically to record data – I know you have it here in Ireland with Tully but this could be rolled out nationwide. Ideally, in the reference population, the breed will get sufficient numbers of trait records for all the traits in the societies’ breeding objective.

"Sufficient numbers are not a fixed thing, but breeds should aim for 250-1,000 new animals recorded and genotyped per year – higher numbers simply generates greater genomic accuracy.”

To conclude, Banks believes large breeds will potentially find these challenges easier to overcome, basically because their costs of reference can be spread over more commercial entities, especially with wide use of AI.

For smaller breeds, particularly in Ireland due to smaller herd sizes, he said “international collaboration is potentially more valuable, because there are diminishing returns to scale in the accuracy of the reference population. Breeds should explore sharing data between countries, and enhance the effectiveness of this by coordinated use of elite, genotyped young sires across countries.”

Genetic advancements in American Angus

Dr Stephen Miller

The American Angus Association (AAA) was established in the USA in 1883 and has grown to be the world’s largest beef breed association according to Dr Stephen Miller. “Annual registrations of Angus in the USA total more than the next 10 largest breeds combined and it is estimated that the Angus content of the nation’s herd is around 70 percent,” he said.

Miller pointed out that the ultimate success of any breeding programme, as seen in American Angus, will be determined in the commercial market place.

“Simply selling genetics amongst breeders is not success. To be truly successful there must be a commercial demand for the genetics. In the case of Angus, the role the Certified Angus Beef (CAB) brand has been key,” he explained.

Statistics show that in 2018, there were 1.215bn pounds (551,114t) of CAB sold, an increase of 8.1% from 2017.

To meet this demand the commercial sector also produced a record number of cattle, with 5.18m meeting the Angus type and 10 quality-based specifications for the brand, a 14.3% increase over 2017.

Following on from this Miller says it is this strong demand for quality beef that is driving the commercial demand for quality bulls.

Genetic improvement within the Angus breed is a true success story.

In 2001 the transition of Expected Progeny Difference (EPD, similar to EBVs) calculations to an ‘in house’ procedure began and in 2004 the first $Value selection indices were released. Angus Genetics Inc (AGI), was then established in 2007 as a wholly owned for profit subsidiary of AAA.

Now about half of all animals registered are genotyped

As a company it performs genetic evaluation services for Angus as well as other breeds.

“The Angus National Cattle Evaluation updates new pedigree, performance and genomic information on a weekly basis and has now been run continuously for 430 consecutive weeks,” he said.

“In 2018 there were 162,469 genomic tests submitted for genetic evaluation purposes, a 28.3% increase from 2017,” he said.

“Now about half of all animals registered are genotyped.” To incentivise genotyping, AGI reduced the price for a 50K genotype from $45 (€39) to $37 (€32) in 2017. When applied to the animals genotyped in 2018, this represented a $1.3m (€1.14m) saving to breeders. The growth in genomic testing is illustrated in Figure 1.

“Angus dominates the market place, not just because of the demand for CAB and the progress breeders have made in end product traits, but also due to the Angus cow’s place in the commercial cow herd as well,” Miller pointed out.

“To continue to improve traits important in the maternal herd a number of EPDs have been launched including maternal calving ease and mature weight in 2005, heifer pregnancy (fertility) and docility in 2012 and foot score in 2018,” he added.

Table 1 shows the average response to the highest priority traits among breeders on the $Value breeding index survey.