€1,500-per-cow loss from poor breeding strategies
Bernard Eivers, chief executive, National Cattle Breeding Centre, told delegates only 35% of the national dairy cow herd is bred by artificial insemination (AI).
In Holland 86% of the herd is bred by A.I. while the figure for New Zealand is 75%.
“Seventy percent of replacements in Irish dairy farms come from bulls with an Economic Breeding Index (EBI) of just €8.
In contrast, the top A. bulls will breed replacements with an Economic Breeding Index of €100. “This equates to an extra 6.3c per gallon or almost €1,500 per cow in additional income,” Mr Eivers said.
The conference, which was attended by senior executives and board members from co-operatives, also heard that the leading position of the EU agri-food industry will be threatened in the medium to long term if effective measures are not taken to improve its innovative power.
Eddie Hughes, Enterprise Ireland, said a key objective of the national research and development plan is to reach a target of spending 2.5% of GDP on research and development by 2010, with two-thirds of the expenditure coming from industry.
Mr Hughes said the total expenditure by the 700 food companies operating in the Irish market is around €42m per annum.
This amounts to only 0.2% of total output.
Expenditure by all manufacturing industry in Ireland on R&D is 0.7% of output, three times the expenditure of the food sector, he said.
