Dr. Andrew Cromie:

I would like to respond to some of Senator O'Neill's other questions. He was absolutely right to make the point that even though our material refers to six traits, there are actually 17 traits. When we are evaluating female fertility, for example, we evaluate age at first calving, calving intervals and cow survival rates. We present that data as an overall group of traits called female fertility. Similarly, we evaluate carcass weight, carcass fat, carcass confirmation and age at slaughter. Six traits have been listed for ease of presentation, but in effect there are 17 traits in the actual index. We group the traits in that way purely from an ease of presentation perspective when we are talking to a farmer audience.