Friday, 02 June 2017 11:55

Farmer advisory panel for animal evaluation

Written by 
Jeremy Bryant. Jeremy Bryant.

New Zealand Animal Evaluation (NZAEL), a subsidiary of DairyNZ, has set up farmer advisory panel to provide practical, farmer-based feedback on animal evaluation R&D and communication.

NZAEL manager Jeremy Bryant says it is important for farmers to be involved in genetic evaluation development.

“The perspective and experience of farmers is invaluable in enhancing the animal evaluation system.”

The panel will be a forum for discussion between farmers, researchers and the NZAEL team, and to assist NZAEL in identifying practical issues.

The panel’s six farmers have businesses that represent a range of NZ farming systems. They are advocates of genetic improvement, and will meet five times a year to give practical views on R&D proposed or underway by NZAEL and DairyNZ researchers.

It is now giving feedback on two R&D areas: first, a project to reduce the ‘reproof bias’ in AE enrolled sires; second, a mid-term review of the economic models used to generate breeding worth. The review will begin this spring and the panel and other stakeholders will comment.

More like this

Come and chat to the DairyNZ team

DairyNZ's team is looking forward to catching up with Southland and Otago dairy farmers at the Southern Field Days in Waimumu near Gore next month.

Featured

National

Machinery & Products

» Latest Print Issues Online

Milking It

Disunity is death

OPINION: Staying with politics, with less than nine months to go before the general elections, there’s confusion in the Labour…

Indian FTA

OPINION: Winston Peters' tirade against the free trade deal stitched with India may not be all political posturing by the…

» Connect with Dairy News

» eNewsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter