It certainly sounds like the Irish AI companies are up for effecting change in the ownership of the best genetics. I hope Irish farmers, the co-op owners, are included and part of the changing business model.

Rightly or wrongly, I would have expected Irish farmers to at the very least, own/share a stake in the ‘IP’ given that the expected bull or heifer calf is coming from their herd with data generated from ICBF.

The key change internationally seems to be that instead of the breeding program owning bulls in the future, it needs to own the females. It’s a way of guaranteeing that you know what will be generated in the next generation.

In the past this was done through contract matings, etc, but ‘control’ at farm level was limited. Generating ‘super bulls’ from elite females in a short space of time seems to be the road we are on. The Teagasc research on the beef side with Angus cattle plays into this.

The world is becoming a much smaller testing centre and technology is paving the way.

We await a vision, a roadmap to get a better understanding of next steps for Ireland Inc.

We must delve further into the ownership piece before recommending that farmers sign up.

I hope officially announcing this as calving kicks off and farmers are particularly busy was not planned – it would be a bad start (see more p6).