World Wide Sires Workshop

World Wide Sires UK Chairman Drew Sloan OBE opened proceedings with a welcoming introduction to attendees, press and speakers at The Hawkstone Park Hotel, Shropshire. Mr Sloan introduced the Workshop speakers in turn and first up at the podium was Royal Commonwealth Agricultural Society Treasurer and World Wide Sires Director, Michael Lambert.

Michael Lambert:

Mr Lambert outlined the current UK, EU and global milk pricing over the past few months and was optimistic with regard to future UK milk price stability. Northern Ireland milk prices have caused immense concern over the past 12 months but signs of recovery appear underway with December 2009 levels holding firm at 27p per-litre.
China continues to play an important role within global market structures with prices and confidence slowly recovering following the recent melamine in the milk contamination scandal. The growing market in China is expected to help aid global milk prices and the US is starting to flex its financial muscle. The US suffered huge decreases in milk prices during 2009 (down 50% in cases) and has now recovered sufficiently to become the third largest player in the world market according to Mr Lambert.

Marion Challenor:
World Wide Sires UK Managing Director Marion Challenor presented an overview of the company's continued sustained growth within the UK marketplace.  The company's market share continues to increase year by year and 2009 resulted in a further 18% increase in turnover over the previous year's record results.
The company sales force continues to increase owing to demand for its high profile sires as well as being backed by five fulltime professional World Mating Service evaluators. In total, the company offers customers over 100 bulls within its extensive portfolio of Holstein, coloured-breeds and beef sire line-up.

John Cochrane:
World Wide Sires UK Sales Director John Cochrane gave an upbeat presentation on the performance of the company and its phenomenal growth over the past four years. The company has continued to grow strongly despite a degree of volatility in the milk sector however; a powerful line-up of proven bulls has helped maintain its position as a leading source of bovine genetics.
The most popular bull within the stud during 2009 was Durham son, Regancrest Mr Sam. Other top selling bulls included Empire, Blade, Design, Decker and Best according to Mr Cochrane. "The company continues to offer UK farmers the best available bloodlines from our international suppliers in the US, Canada, Italy and Spain. World Wide offers top quality genetics and we provide a wide range of sires at incredible value for money prices. Every week, more and more UK farmers become customers of World Wide," he said.

Joel Mergler (Select Sires)
Select Sires Vice President of International Development Joel Mergler presented the main topic at the Workshop. "Genomic evaluation is the biggest step forward for the cattle breeding industry in the past 60 years," he stated.

Mr Mergler has been involved in the AI industry for the past 30 years and considers genomic advancement as the single most important development within cattle-breeding since the advent of frozen semen. "There's little doubt that genomics will change the industry and ultimately the way in which sires are mated, procured and tested. We will still have a balance of science and the art of breeding but genomic profiles enable the assessment of an animal's true genetic merit," he said.

"We can now identify key sections of the DNA material that relates to important traits. The reliability of young sires has doubled using genomics in comparison to the previous Parent Average system. Reliability factors have increased from 40% to 70% for production traits, whilst type reliabilities have increased from 37% to 65%. Important health and fitness traits have also increased from 31% to 60%.

"This latest technology will help revolutionise the industry and is the most important advancement since the introduction of frozen semen.  The use of genomics has increased reliabilities to the extent of having an evaluation based upon a sire having the equivalent of 21 daughters. However, we should still maintain a degree of caution and remember that whilst we have considerably increased the levels of reliability, we are only viewing 70% of the whole picture."
Identifying the key traits has been a long and extensive process with data having been collected from over 7,880 North American Holstein bulls dating back to the 1960s. Young bulls entering AI studs are now screened and the genomic profile of several siblings can reveal which animals will go forward for progeny testing. However, there is a degree of variance within each sibling group and one animal may offer high type traits and another brother offer increasing levels of production or health traits.

Ohio-based Select Sires, joint owners of global distributors, World Wide Sires Incorporated, has used the emerging technology to screen young bulls entering progeny testing programmes over the past five years. The company evaluates 350 Holstein sires per annum and genomic screening has enabled better bulls to be progeny tested according to Mr Mergler. "We're still testing the same number of bulls through our ten farmer co-operatives as in previous years but are selecting bulls with a greater chance of graduating through the evaluation programme.

"The technology allowed the company to build an advanced supply bank on several promising young sires prior to their release. This early collection of semen has enable more supply being made available to overseas markets at a time of high demand following a bull returning to active service as a high profile proven sire.
"The US was the first country to introduce genomic information into their genetic evaluation listings back in January 2009. Farmers are realising the benefits offered by genomic information and young sire uptake is increasing as breeders have more information on which to base their mating decisions. We are now able to offer farmers a group of young bulls that offer high type or high protein to suit their individual herd requirements," he said.

Rob Braithwaite: WMS Manager.
World Mating Service manager Rob Braithwaite presented an overview of the development of WMS and its continued growth as a major tool benefiting large herd owners. The WMS team now consists of five fulltime professional evaluators operating on a national-basis.  Mr Braithwaite enlisted the assistance of well known and respected herd manager, Mr Andy Offland, to offer a forthright opinion on the benefits of the programme.

The question and answer session allowed participants to probe the reasons for the success of the programme and Mr Offland's experience of the system. "It was a 'leap of faith' to start using the WMS programme. In the past, we spent hours of time selecting and choosing mating sires for the herd. We're saving a lot of time and labour resources by using WMS and we're seeing the benefit in the quality of cattle coming through the herd," he said.

"We're seeing greater uniformity right across the herd and have seen improvements on production as well as on conformation. The animals are lasting longer and are trouble-free, the improvements in health and welfare aspects have been really noticeable. We originally selected bulls on price and the improvements have been tremendous. Having a professional evaluator objectively score cows within the herd and subsequently provide a list of potential matings, has resulted in huge benefits as well as saving time, money and labour," Andy concluded.

Bryan Challenor:

World Wide Sires Livestock Director Bryan Challenor provided an insight into the importance of cow families and the performance of several of the company's UK proven sire line up. Mr Challenor was highly impressed with daughters of Mr Sam currently achieving over 90% Good Plus and Better (Holstein UK) and another sire, Duplex, is also achieving similar ratings.

Several other top bulls are currently emerging according to Bryan. "I'm very impressed with daughters of Design and Durham Ross and look forward to these animals calving out over the next few months. Another bull who is emerging as a major force is Decker. The bull was widely proven across the board and his daughters are very impressive. Decker now has 135 Holstein UK classified animals averaging over 90% Good Plus and Better. He's a phenomenal sire and he offers incredible value for money," he said.

Mike Rakes:

World Wide Sires Incorporated Vice President of Marketing Mike Rakes explained the benefit of team work and professionalism in the workplace. "Open your eyes to every opportunity and use what works for you," he informed the audience.

 "In business, you have to be prepared to take risks. You have to adopt - adapt and improve. Keep in touch with new technology and don't sit back and become a dinosaur - or the world will move on without you. Set your goals - and go for it. Remember to speak positive - and be positive!" he concluded.