< Digest 79 - Papers
Breeding for regeneration, resilience, and national security
This article was written by Rhian Price, press officer for the British Cattle Breeders Club. Regenerative farming is fundamental to delivering ecological security, ecological efficiency, and optimal productivity. We are facing a climate crisis which threatens ecological insecurity, locally and globally. As we peer into the coming storm policy is driving in two opposite directions: There is...
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The journey to Net Zero. A farmer’s perspective, the ARC Zero Experience
This article was written by Rhian Price, press officer for the British Cattle Breeders Club. Farmers deliver multiple public goods to society, not just net zero, and it is important this message is articulated to and recognised by society. These public goods include producing nutritious food, delivering soil improvement, accelerating carbon sequestration, improving water quality, optimising bio...
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Beef a green future
“Tell me what you know, not what you think” was a question posed to me in a recent meeting and its resonance has stuck with me. Many beef farmers are currently being faced with some hard questions regarding their businesses, but often don’t have enough real data and performance information to make informed decisions for making changes or improvements. The fall-back position is that decisions are b...
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Building a profitable suckler herd with environmental credentials – combining technology & simplicity in equal measure
I am a fourth-generation beef farmer, with a first generation business. When I started my business in 2016, in order to obtain funding, I had to demonstrate to the bank that I could buck the trend at the time and build a business that could tackle the major issues that the industry faced such as rising input costs and market volatility. My herd, management and breeding principles are fully focus...
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Net zero from productive grasslands
Germinal, a sixth-generation family business is focused on providing ground breaking farming and food solutions and developing new plants and technologies to improve the performance, efficiency and sustainability of livestock farmers.  Germinal is spearheading research and innovation with Germinal Horizon. They have a team of scientists embedded at the Institute of Biological, Environmental and ...
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Balancing ruminant food security and climate change
Background Professor Huws is an expert in Sustainable Livestock Production, with an emphasis on ruminants. Her research is focussed on reducing methane emissions from ruminants and ensuring effective land use to capture carbon efficiently, with the underlying aim of ensuring that ruminants continue to fulfil our food security needs globally in terms of protein and micromineral supply. A ‘One-Hea...
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Meat and Dairy in Human Health and Nutrition - Reflections on “Too Little” / “Too Much”
Setting the Scene The world in 2024 faces climate and biodiversity crises, and food production and consumption contributes importantly to both crises. The food system is currently estimated to be responsible for about a third of total greenhouse gas emissions, and the conversion of natural ecosystems to agricultural land has been reported to be the largest threat to species extinction. Hence ther...
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Gaining Momentum in the Journey to Sustainable Beef: A Dairy-Beef Perspective
A sustainable food system starts with better genetics. Our work at Genus ABS uses the fundamentals of animal genetic improvement, combined with advancements in reproductive technologies, to provide our customers with continually improving, sustainable genetic solutions, which in turn help nourish the world more sustainably. With only 30% of dairy calves expected to join the milking herd as repla...
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FastBreeders Project
FastBreeders is a collaboration between four progressive farmers. Highly educated and with years of experience and professional development the group share the same vision for resilient dairy systems.  Their operations can exploit economies of scale, benefit from increased selection intensity in donor animals and build resilience because genetic material can move freely.  Their assets include 8900...
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Productive day efficiency: An effective metric for the UK cattle herd
Introduction Cattle keepers nationally and internationally are aware of the need to accurately measure and improve herd productive efficiency. Striving for improved efficiency not only makes good business sense, returning a higher margin from each animal, but also reduces the carbon footprint of every kilogram of beef or milk output. Inefficiency and waste in cattle herds occur as a result of red...
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Breeding feed efficient and climate friendly Norwegian Red cows
The aim of Geno’s green cow project is to include selection for improved feed efficiency and reduced methane emissions in the sustainable breeding goal for Norwegian Red. This to save feed costs and at the same time reduce environmental footprint from dairy production. Geno SA is the breeding organisation for Norwegian Red, the main dairy breed in Norway. The organisation is a cooperative owned by...
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Breeding for Climate Friendly Cows – New registrations with CFIT-System to be used in Genetics and Management
Since 2014 we have worked on developing a 3D camera-based system to perform 3 major tasks: being able to identify the cow while eating quantify the amount of feed that the has been eating during a visit predict the body weight of the cow The main aim has been to collect data that can be used for breeding value estimation for feed efficiency so that the bulls we sell semen from have a breeding...
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