48 | T T Karen Phelps Ella Holland is national territory manager for Performance Beef Breeders (PBB). REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Herd profiling tool has ‘huge potential’ Rangitikei: Performance Beef Breeders Performance Beef Breeders (PBB) has just launched a new product for the New Zealand market to help commercial beef breeders to manage DNA predictions. Igenity was developed in association with Neogen and gives commercial cattle producers highly advanced profiling to predict the fertility, performance and quality of their cow herd. “Making decisions backed by Igenity testing can generate significant ROI in the selection and breeding of replacement heifers,” says PBB general manager Harry Faas. “Commercial breeders could only see half the picture before as they had access to the kind of information Igenity offers for the male line. Now with Igenity they can see detailed information for the female line as well. This allows them to invest in future cows that are easy calvers, rebreed consistently and produce thrifty, high-quality feeders.” He says that traditionally key signals about cattle performance had come to commercial breeders from variable sources, at varied intervals and inconsistent formats. Coupled with the fact this information was often the product of industry sectors with different goals than the breeder’s, the information was not only difficult to pull together but often not fit for purpose and inaccurate. The easy to use Igenity reporting system allows farmers to identify traits heifers will pass on to their offspring, predictions of fertility and maternal performance, genetic merit for feed efficiency, growth and carcass composition and genetic strengths and areas that need improvement. Breeders can call up herd reports and assess their maternal, performance and carcass traits, use Igenity to sort cattle, compare them to herd mates and benchmark against other herds in the database etc. “By using the Igenity tools, they can easily see patterns, strengths and areas needing improvement. Igenity dashboard indexing sorts and ranks cattle using multiple traits in a simultaneous fashion. “In a few moments they can have a prioritized ranking of calves for selection and management decisions,” explains Harry. Harry says Igenity has huge potential. “In the short term it enables commercial breeders to make better decisions and, by making faster genetic gain, they end up with more money in their pockets. In the long term we plan to work with research institutes to see how we can develop future traits that will be important to our breeders.” For example with regards to climate change, Harry says trials in Ireland have identified a feed efficiency trait, which enables cows to convert dry matter to muscle more efficiently. The implication of this is that it could result in animals that produce less methane thus enabling farmers to more easily meet their emissions targets. “What is also exciting is that this trait doesn’t seem to come at the cost of any other traits. So this is the type of thing we want to be looking at with our research, things that could really have huge benefits for breeders.” Igenity marks a big expansion of the PBB offering as it has traditionally just catered to the seed stock industry. It is an indication of the innovative nature that has been the foundation of the company since its inception in 1996. PBB was started as the mechanism for the Angus and Hereford breeds to collectively own a service that would provide administrative and technology services to its combined membership and a unified voice for the beef industry. According to Harry it is still a groundbreaking industry collaboration by international standards, recognizing that different beef breeds aren’t necessarily the opposition. PBB is a limited liability company governed by a board of directors comprising of six members who are nominated by the shareholders (breed societies). Harry says that PBB takes full advantage of economies of scale, providing better integration, and avoiding duplication of administrative services within the industry. This has been achieved through improved purchasing power and reduction in administration expenses. It was also this that allowed for the development of Igenity as PBB had access to so much data that it identified had other applications for breeders. The PBB complex is located on the fringe of Feilding’s CBD in South Street providing admin, accounting, graphic design and registry services to nine other breeds apart from Angus and Hereford. The complex includes two commercial tenants - Beef + Lamb NZ and Primary ITO. Services encompass tags, genomics, registry, SIL bureau, marketing, catalogue building and livestock management software Stockbook and Live Entry. “We know that improved business profitability starts with good quality livestock management software and resulting data,” says Harry. “With a range of data collection options, Stockbook helps breeders to manage genetic performance, fertility, weight gain and other performance measures so they can identify less productive stock. “It’s about offering breeders the livestock intelligence within their operation by turning data into actionable information and insight.” He says, like all PBB products, Stockbook has been developed to be easy to use with Live Entry enabling breeders to collect and view data on their animals in real-time. It is a mobile system and integrates easily with other software and equipment farmers regularly use on their farms. “Stockbook is just another example of how PBB is committed to leading the way by providing future focused business solutions to enhance business and breed performance in the livestock industry.” PBB general manager Harry Faas says by using Igenity tools, breeders “can easily see patterns, strengths and areas needing improvement”.
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