A review of the national breeding objective and selection indexes for the Australian dairy industry — ASN Events
  1. Schedule
  2. Concurrent 7 - Breeding objectives & economics II
  3. A review of the national breeding objective and selection indexes for the Australian dairy industry

A review of the national breeding objective and selection indexes for the Australian dairy industry (#42)

Timothy Byrne 1 , Daniel Martin-Collado 1 , Peter Amer 1 , Bruno Santos 1 , Jennie Pryce 2 , Michelle Axford 3
  1. AbacusBio Limited, Dunedin, OTAGO, New Zealand
  2. Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia
  3. Australian Dairy Herd Improvement Scheme, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

We applied a pairwise comparison method using the 1000Minds® software to assess farmers’ preferences for cow trait improvements. A Principal Component Analysis (PCA) followed by a Cluster Analysis (CA) of the principal components led to the identification of three farmer clusters (farmer types in the rest of this document) according to the trait improvements to which the farmers had the highest preference. This way, Australian dairy farmers can be classified into Production-focused (n = 192), Functionality-focused (n = 187), and Type-focused (n = 172) farmers. As a result of this study, and bio-economic modelling, three indexes were released to the Australian dairy industry. The Balanced Performance Index aligns with the average preferences, while the Health Weighted and Type Weighted indexes reflect the preferences identified for functionally-focused and type-focused farmer types, respectively. These three indexes include new traits and offer a range of options to choose from when selecting bulls, while all driving gain towards the National Breeding Objective (NBO).

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