From Tuesday 1 September, farmers who have registered for the Bovine Genetics Project are able to start DNA sampling of breeding cattle in their herds.
The aim of the project is to accelerate the rate of genetic gain within dairy and beef herds in NI, which ultimately will result in more efficient and profitable animals.
In total, up to £60m of potential funding has been made available for the Bovine Genetics Project, which is being delivered by industry-led body Sustainable Ruminant Genetics (SRG) Ltd, in partnership with DAERA. The current plan is that participation in the project will be a new condition linked to farm payments – farmers must sign up and complete associated training by May 2028, to avoid penalties on their Farm Sustainability Payment.
However, due to resistance from some politicians at Stormont, the genotyping element of the new project is not compulsory, even though the wider success of the entire initiative is largely dependent on getting a large proportion of the NI cattle herd tissue sampled.
It is this Bovine Genetics Genotyping Scheme which is now available to farmers from 1 September. In total, DAERA has committed a budget of £16.6m, to cover the cost of genotyping all breeding cattle and calves in NI by the end of 2027.
Farmers who take part will get genetic (genomic) information on all their breeding animals, allowing them to make better-informed decisions, including which cows are best suited to producing replacements.
Register
The first stage in the process is to register for the project via the SRG user portal (www.srgni.com), using the same Government Gateway or NI Direct login details as when logging into other DAERA online services.
After reading and accepting terms and conditions, farmers will be asked to select an approved lab for genotyping and nominate a tag supplier – tissue tags (similar to those used in the BVD scheme) are used to take samples for DNA analysis.
The next step is to provide bank details, so that a direct debit can be set up by SRG for payment of genotyping costs.
Under the scheme, a farmer is charged when a tissue sample is received by a lab for processing. It is expected that the cost per sample, to include the price of the tag, will be around £11. However, this cost will be reimbursed by the department at a later date, with a subsidy of £13 paid out for every eligible sample received by the lab – it is understood that this money will be issued to farmers in payment runs every three to four months.
Once registered, farmers will be able to see which animals in their herd are eligible for DNA sampling, with their nominated tag supplier also having access to this list. A farmer can switch to a different approved tag supplier if they wish, and can also unselect animals, such as cull cows going for slaughter or heifers not for breeding.
The tags are an official DAERA tag so they can count as a replacement tag. The tags can be ordered, collected and inserted from 1 September.
From now onwards, all females in the herd and any breeding bulls (registered as “B” on NIFAIS) are eligible for sampling. Starting on 1 January 2027, the scheme will cover the cost of sampling all newborn calves (whether males or females). The scheme is expected to remain open until May 2028 to allow any late-born calves in 2027 to be sampled, along with any other breeding animals in the herd between 1 September 2026 and 31 December 2027.
For those farmers participating in the genotyping scheme, it means the 2027 calf crop will be tagged using two tissue tags – one for the BVD scheme (white or clear vial) and one for the DNA sample (a pink vial).
Sustainable Ruminant Genetics (SRG) Ltd, is a not-for-profit company established in 2022 in a partnership involving the Ulster Farmers’ Union (UFU), the Dairy Council for NI, the Livestock and Meat Commission (LMC) and the NI Meat Exporters’ Association (NIMEA).
The current chair of SRG is former UFU president Victor Chestnutt, with the CEO being Tyrone Simmental breeder, John Moore. While SRG leads on the delivery of the project, collection of data, genomic evaluations and benchmarking services is all done by the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF). There is also input from the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB), which means dairy farms in the project will be able to use the Profitable Lifetime Index (£PLI) when making breeding decisions.
Farmers who register for the bovine genetics project will be able to access a number of different services on the SRG user portal.
Included within that are calving reports – which include information on the likes of calving interval, replacement rate and calves per cow, per year – as well as weanling data and performance of prime cattle and cows at slaughter.
Once animals have been genotyped, there will also be a genomic profile of the herd, confirming the breed and sire of the animal and whether it is a carrier of major genes (such as myostatin, polledness, dwarfism, etc).
Longer term, the plan for suckler herds is that each breeding animal will have a maternal and a terminal index, helping to identify those best suited for breeding replacements or cattle for slaughter.
On the dairy side, the project will use £PLI as the main index for farmers. But rather than having a PLI based on the average taken from its parents, genotyping means that each breeding animal will have a PLI based on its actual genetic merit, so it will be significantly more accurate.
Dairy farmers will also have access to other AHDB genetic reports as well as a dairy beef index, which will help them select beef bulls.
The other main index is a commercial beef value for non-breeding cattle, which will provide information on an animal’s genetic capability across key beef traits.
It is hoped that this information will be displayed on mart boards in the future.
Can you tell me a little bit about your farm?
I farm with my father Derek, we milk around 120 pedigree-bred cows, managed in a commercial way.
The cows are calved in a tight autumn block over three months from September to November, with around 50% calving in September. We are supplying Dale Farm and the herd averages around 11,000l, with rolling average butterfat of 4.15% and protein of 3.44%.
Our breeding goals are to improve fertility to maintain a tight calving pattern and increase butterfat and protein, ultimately, to increase milk solids.
What made you decide to get involved with genotyping?
The opportunity to get it done for free was certainly an incentive. But because we are pedigree breeding and have an interest in breeding, having more information on the animals is something that should benefit our breeding goals.
We’re at a stage where we are happy with the number of cows we have, so rather than continuing to increase numbers, the focus is on improving the cows in the herd.
Can you give me a specific example of something genotyping showed you about an animal?
I think the main thing I have seen so far is the way genomic information can help build a picture of cow families.
When you have a number of animals from the same family tested, you can start to see certain traits coming through generations, for example, strong fertility, butterfat or protein.
It can reassure you that the lines you are breeding from are the right ones, while also helping identify lines that perhaps should be bred to beef. It will take a bit of time for the full picture to build, but even with the first batch of heifers tested, I could see certain families where particular traits were consistent across the animals.
Has the genomic information ever changed or confirmed a breeding decision you were going to make?
It is still early in the programme, so I would not say I have made massive breeding decisions because of the genomic information yet. I don’t want to overstate what we have done at this stage.
What it has done is reassure me about some of the animals and cow families we are breeding from. I am planning to use the information much more actively going forward.
I will be breeding in December and hope to have all of my cows genomically tested in September so that I have the information back in time to make those decisions.
What benefits do you think this could bring to the herd over time?
Ultimately, genomics gives us an extra tool to reach our breeding goals quicker. Everyone wants to improve their herd in certain ways, and genomic testing is one of the tools that can help us do that. The end goal is to make the farm more profitable, and I think genomic information can help us achieve that.
What would you say to another farmer who is considering genotyping?
I would definitely advise them to do it. It is all information that can help us make better decisions. For me, this is a chance not to be missed for farmers to get a full genomic profile of their herd, it’s a no brainer.