The board of the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) has decided to reschedule the implementation date of the New Beef Eurostar evaluations.
The implementation date will be rescheduled from Tuesday, November 21, to Tuesday, November 28.
In a statement to Agriland, the ICBF has said it will “engage in further communications with both pedigree and commercial beef farmers on the upcoming changes”.
The ICBF statement explained that the implementation of improvements to both the Terminal and Replacement beef indexes is the result of “an independent technical review and consultation with a focus group”.
“These changes stem from several years of collaborative research between Teagasc and ICBF, on the back of industry feedback and international best practice.”
The last review of beef breeding indexes in Ireland occurred in 2015 with the relative emphasis on the individual traits derived by Teagasc. Because of the ongoing Beef Data and Genomics Programme (BDGP), the indexes were not updated despite “obvious” changes in output prices and costs of production.
From a Suckler Carbon Efficiency Programme (SCEP) perspective, all existing genotyped 4- and 5-star animals will remain eligible for the programme in their current herds.
In any case, 84% of animals that are 4- and 5-star on the current evaluation will remain 4- and 5- star on the new evaluation.
“The fact that some animals will rise from 3-star to 4- and 5-star means even more animals will become eligible which will see more herds meeting the 2023 SCEP female replacement requirement,” according to the ICBF.
The fundamental ‘improvements’ to the genetic evaluations include:
- Updates to the economic values on individual traits to better reflect the markets;
- Inclusion of carbon to future-proof breeding policy;
- Inclusion of new traits to better reflect the changing market requirements;
- Improved methodology in how animals are genetically evaluated;
- Update to economic values.
“Breeding indexes globally are regularly updated to reflect the changes in output prices and costs of production.
“The updates to the economic values for all traits in both the Terminal and Replacement indexes better represent the longer-term outlook on the industry as a whole, e.g. carcass weight economic value has increased from €3.89/kg to €4.68/kg.”