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The ICBF’s spring EBI run results will not be available until the end of April, it has emerged.
The move means farmers will lose out on potentially a full year’s genetic gain in their herd.
Under questioning at the Positive Farmers conference, ICBF chair Michael Doran said: “EBI values on sires will not be available until the end of April in order to get as much information as possible on sires that have calves born in February and March.”
Too late
The end of April is far too late for spring-calving herds in Ireland to be making breeding decisions.
By then over 90% of Irish farmers will have their requirement of AI sires purchased and delivered, and if they don’t, they will at least have placed orders and will be awaiting delivery.
Farmers will lose out on potentially a full year’s genetic gain as sires born in 2016 awaiting calving information will not be purchased in large quantities this spring.
In March 2017 we had the AI companies battling with the ICBF as the federation rightly pushed hard to make all information available to farmers with the most recent information updated.
There were two issues: the need to include calving performance from young sires (calvings in February and early March), and also the inclusion of information from the genomic training population that was being updated as daughters of 2011 sires were included on the list.
Lost the battle
This year it seems the ICBF has lost the battle with its shareholding AI companies to include this information long before the peak AI purchasing season even starts.
Last year, AI companies argued they needed to get catalogues published in advance of the selling season. In addition, if any new information became available on sires, the semen in stock might not be needed at all.
Also, of course, young bulls can only be worked so hard in the first season so hence semen quantities could be limited.
Compromise
Farmers will naturally seek the best sires with the best EBI figures.
A compromise must be reached. It is incumbent on the ICBF and the AI companies to make the best genetics available to Irish farmers.
Information from 2018 needs to be included in a spring 2018 evaluation run and results made available prior to the peak buying time for farmers.
SHARING OPTIONS: