Ireland needs to get to the point where every calf in the country is DNA tested, Teagasc head of drystock knowledge transfer Pearse Kelly has said.
Kelly said the genomic testing of all calves is “on the way”, is a “very small jump for suckler herds” and “different schemes are being talked about”.
He said this would be a “world first” from a traceability point of view and would enable the use of commercial beef value (CBV) at marts, the “next step up” from the addition of dam breed.
He said Teagasc wants the CBV displayed on mart boards as it combats rising input costs and reduces emissions. He said genomic registration removes concerns over the manipulation of CBV values.
Kelly suggested DNA testing removes concerns of farmers manipulating figures by inaccurately registering calves to bump up CBV values.
‘Brake horsepower’
At a Teagasc beef seminar in Wexford last week, Kelly described the CBV as the “brake horsepower” of the animal where, like in a car, it’s the animal’s attributes that you can’t immediately see but which are fundamental to performance.
He said when buying cattle in a mart, farmers can see the age, colour, condition and weight of the animal but “you don’t know the genetics”.
For farmers paid up to ICBF’s Herd Plus, the CBV shows a rating from one to five stars on the animal’s genetic merit for weight, conf0rmation, fat, docility and feed intake, showing “exactly what you want if you’re buying an animal to grow or to finish”, said Kelly.
Reliability
“[It] 100% does work and the reason it works is because most of the traits are really heritable,” he continued.
Kelly highlighted Teagasc Grange and Dawn Meats studies with over 1,000 cattle which show five-star CBV animals were “on average 30kg” heavier than one-stars at slaughter.
“You should be willing to pay a little bit more for these five stars and, by right, the people producing the one-star calves, for whatever reason, they should be taking a little bit less for those calves, maybe a lot less, because they’re not producing quality,” he said.