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Dairy Genetics in Black And White–A Bull Market for U.S. Exporters
By Mary Ponomarenko 
For dairy farmers, whether they live in the United States or overseas, success begins with generations of healthy cows, producing high-quality milk.
It takes great care in breeding to maintain fine genetic lines. Thus, a strong presence on an elite international list ranking the world’s top 100 dairy bulls is critical to dairy breeders and to U.S. exporters of bull semen–a market averaging $60 million in the past five years. In 1996, about 40 percent of the list’s bulls–or 39 U.S. Holsteins–had a place on this elite roster.
Impressive as that sounds, it is a step down. In 1995, U.S. bulls accounted for more than half of the listed animals. U.S. dairy-producing Holsteins are still considered among the world’s best. What caused the change?The Foreign Agricultural Service is helping the National Association of Animal Breeders to find out.
The heart of the of the problem, it turned out, lay in a need for improved data gathering and analysis, and not in issues of animal quality. As a result of the research, there is greater international confidence in the reliability of the data and U.S. bull rankings have returned to their previous levels.
Dairy Rankings: A Backgrounder
The "Top 100 Dairy Bull List" is generated from genetic evaluations calculated by INTERBULL, an international database of genetic profiles. The subject: a dairy bull’s daughters–the milk quality and quantity of the cows he sires.
The bulls that sire top-quality daughters–called dams by the industry–can make big money. Frozen straws containing their semen are of great value to U.S. and overseas dairy producers who seek to improve their herds.
The main focus in genetics is currently on bulls because they are a source of an unlimited number of offspring. Cows can calve only a limited number of times.
The United States has long been recognized as a world leader in dairy genetics. Furthermore, the U.S. dairy livestock sector’s productive and innovative artificial insemination technologies and accurate recordkeeping have catapulted U.S. genetics to the top.
Genetic materials are an increasing force in today’s international livestock commerce. Thus, the National Association of Animal Breeders and USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service have worked hard to promote U.S. breeding lines overseas.
As a result, more than 95 percent of the herds in leading dairying nations can trace their genetic lineage to bulls from the United States.
But recently, as Canada, The Netherlands, France and other key dairy leaders began to build their herd quality, they also grew more globally competitive in animal genetics. Out of the competition came a worldwide call to collect dairy data on an international scale.
A New World Ordering
In response to this pressure, the International Bull Evaluation Service, or INTERBULL, was instituted.
Data collection began in 1983 as a cooperative project of the European Association for Animal Production, the International Dairy Federation and the International Committee for Animal Recording.
The project was financed by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. The Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala provides management and clerical support.
In 1991, INTERBULL was authorized to collect country data and calculated genetic evaluations. In 1995, 10 countries submitted data to the INTERBULL Center. Last year, 25 countries contributed.
In the United States, dairy milking records are compiled by the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. Farmers gladly participate–because winning the "Academy Award" of the dairy world brings them recognition as well as dollars.
A Bull Market–Or a Bust?
Over time, with more countries submitting data and more of them scientifically improving their herds, you would expect U.S. dominance to decline somewhat.
The size of the drop, however, left agriculture experts, statisticians and farmers scratching their heads. Something had to be throwing the numbers off.
One problem: different countries keep dairy herd records differently, which might bias the results. Errors in data gathering could also create problems.
Moreover, milk quality is a combination of many factors–not just genes. Some animals’ genetics may do better in different environments. For example, New Zealand has a grassland management system, whereas the United States and Europe have grain-intensive management.
Grass diets, fed to U.S.-bred cows, could change milk qualities and distort what farmers see–and report to INTERBULL.
Another factor might be what different countries select as key value traits. In some nations, high milk fat is more important than the milk’s protein content. In others, the opposite is true.
Finally, the amount of genetic variation in the population of cattle has a big impact on results. Countries in the early stages of upgrading to U.S. Holsteins will have much greater genetic variation than those with established populations.
Research to the Rescue
The National Association of Animal Breeders began a three-year research project through FAS’ Emerging Markets Program to uncover why fewer U.S. bulls were showing up on the top 100 list. The researchers found that part of the problem was that U.S. bulls older than 17 years were still lingering on INTERBULL’s records. As with sports heroes, in dairy bulls, age matters.
These old bulls were not competing for top-100 positions, yet just having their scores in the data set was affecting the ranking for newer generations. Most of those "elder statesman" bulls have now been removed.
INTERBULL data editors also found problems with the age adjustment factors used to compensate for middle-aged animals–younger than 17, but still not youthful. Better criteria are being developed to paint a more accurate picture of what the world’s genetic lines–including U.S. Holsteins–have to offer.
INTERBULL data managers are also counseling contributors to keep more careful records, and have even begun rejecting substandard data from INTERBULL summaries.
While some analysts seek to improve the accuracy of existing data sets, others are exploring entirely new methods for international evaluation.
While INTERBULL sticks to bulls, some researchers are suggesting ranking cows for consideration as bull dams.
Customized software promises to do a better job of connecting data to genetics. One part of this research is to find better ways to harmonize national ranking systems–with their different emphasis on value traits–into a consistent, streamlined world ranking.
Finally, the National Association of Animal Breeders has identified a number of key questions for follow-up research to improve the reliability of INTERBULL’s Multiple Across Country Evaluations system.
These initiatives, made possible by NAAB’s involvement with INTERBULL, and financed in part through FAS’ Emerging Markets Program, will benefit the entire dairy industry.
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The author is an agricultural economist with FAS’ Dairy, Livestock and Poultry Division in Washington, D.C. Tel.: (202) 720-4455; Fax: (202) 720-0617; E-mail: Ponomarenko@fas.usda.gov
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