Agriland understands that the ICBF (Irish Cattle Breeding Federation) has hurriedly called a meeting of its board this evening.
It is believed that the meeting has been called to deal with concerns regarding the ICBF’s livestock data. The meeting is currently underway in Co. Tipperary.
Although the ICBF failed to comment on the exact reasoning as to why the unscheduled meeting was called, Agriland believes it relates to certain aspects of its data.
The Spring 2017 Active Bull List was expected to become available to farmers later this week. However, this now looks unlikely.
When contacted for comment, Chairman of the Board of the ICBF, Michael Doran, said he was unable to discuss any details of the meeting of the board until after it had taken place.
2017 will be the 17th consecutive year that the Active Bull List will be published. It ranks the bulls available through AI or ‘active’ for breeding, on the basis of their EBI (Economic Breeding Index) value.
Last September, the ICBF announced details of a change to the EBI ranking, which resulted in every dairy animal’s EBI being scaled back by €71.
This came as the base cow, used to calculate the EBI, was changed from a 1995-born cow to a 2005-born animal.