The theme of ICBF’s and Sheep Ireland’s upcoming genetics conference is “Breeding Solutions for today’s Challenges”.
The one-day annual event, which is aimed at the dairy, beef and sheep sectors, will take place on Friday, January 17th in The Heritage Hotel, Killenard, Co. Laois.
This will consist of split dairy, beef and sheep sessions in the morning, with the FBD €uroStar €200 competition awards being presented during lunch.
Herd owners will be rewarded for excellence within their sectors being; commercial suckler beef, pedigree beef breeding, dairy production or pedigree sheep breeding.
New developments
“In response to new challenges within the industry of animal breeding in Ireland, ICBF & Sheep Ireland have several new developments which will be discussed at this year’s conference.”
Teagasc, Sheep Ireland and ICBF researchers will outline proposed solutions to the challenges that are facing the industry today.
Topics include:
- New calving evaluations for beef & dairy;
- Updates to the maintenance figure in EBI;
- Meat-eating quality indexes;
- Beef’s own worth;
- DNA-based calf registrations;
- Multi-breed dairy genomics.
Speakers include:
- Dr Ross Evans, ICBF Lead geneticist;
- Dr Alan Twomey, Teagasc Moorepark;
- Dr Andrew Cromie, ICBF technical director;
- Dr Noirin McHugh, beef & sheep geneticist Teagasc;
- Dr Margaret Kelleher, ICBF geneticist.
Following the morning sessions, there will be a poster session with updates from PhD students studying genetics of cattle and sheep.
A panel discussion, led by keynote speaker, Senator Ian Marshall, will follow.
He will “use his own perspective” to discuss social license, environmental impact and how these matters impact the consumers buying decisions.
Also partaking in the panel discussion will be Prof Donagh Berry (Teagasc), Sean Coughlan (CEO of ICBF) and James Murphy, chairman of Sheep Ireland.
Purchase tickets
To purchase tickets for the event, please click here.
Image source: Irish Simmental Cattle Society
