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Reinventing the livestock breed society
Modern breed societies need a new approach, new tools, and a cost effectiveness focus to be relevant to today's livestock breeders.
Embracing a state-of-the-art database is the first necessary step. It must be one that can easily in- clude user entered information to reduce admin- istrative overheads as well as the ability to record photos, videos, pedigree with verification (parent verification), understandable and verifiable per- formance recording, and genomic trait recording. It should be available in the paddock on a mobile device and ideally integrated with useful farm management software. Innovative database use al- lows for one-off lifetime registration for animals - no longer requiring annual renewals or expensive herd inventory costs. Performance recording and trait recording, and parent verification which eventually becomes pedi- gree verification, specifically provide certainty for
For many decades, centuries in some cases, the use case for a livestock breed society has been slowly changing and it is fair to say that not all breed societies have kept pace with the requirement for change. Long term endeavours such as breeding a line of agricultural livestock require significant conservatism to succeed but this also limits the innovation and technological change that can be harnessed by thoughtful and care- ful embracing of technology. A modern ideal breed society must retain the core function of maintaining an accurate pedigree but to assist breeders in their efforts, pedigree databases should include details of measurable traits, espe- cially highly heritable traits. In addition to accuracy, images, video, and marketing tools are expected in any modern useful system.
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