The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation (ICBF) has confirmed the death of its former chief executive officer (CEO), Brian Wickham.
Wickham died on Sunday (August 20) after a long battle with cancer.
He played a key role in cattle breeding not only in his native New Zealand, but also here in Ireland.
He developed the concept of the LIC database and was instrumental in developing the national breeding objective in New Zealand – which led to the now used BW (Breeding Worth).
Source: ICBF
In a statement to Agriland, ICBF said: “Staff in ICBF, who knew Brian, were very saddened to hear the news.
“Brian was always so passionate about the role that cattle breeding could play in improving the profitability of farmers.
“His principled view of ensuring that the ICBF database was farmer owned and controlled, set Ireland in a unique position in terms of cattle breeding.
“He always found the positives, even in the most challenging of negotiations and his integrity was always beyond reproach,” the statement concluded.
A New Zealander, he moved to Ireland in 1998 and played a key role in establishing ICBF. The federation was formed in 2000 to operate the national database in Ireland.
This included the establishment of the national database system, which comprised beef cattle as well as dairy cattle, and later added sheep.
He retired from ICBF in 2012 and in February 2019 he took up a role with New Zealand Animal Evaluation Limited (NZAEL) as its manager, returning to New Zealand full-time.
He stood down from this role after he was diagnosed with cancer in 2021.