Mr. Sean Coughlan:

I thank the Chairman and members of the committee for the invitation to come before it and I welcome the opportunity to provide some information to the committee on some of the technical aspects of the scheme from a breeding perspective. The ICBF is the independent industry-owned agency responsible for the generation of genetic evaluations for cattle in Ireland and it is licensed by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. We have attended the various farmer meetings around the country over the past couple of months and have fielded many queries and concerns in regard to the technical breeding and genomic-related aspects of the scheme. I am also aware that two weeks ago, Brendan Gleeson and his colleagues were in attendance at this committee. In that context, and in the context of the invitation to attend here today, I propose to cover some of those issues raised and my colleague, Dr. Andrew Cromie and I will be more than happy to answer any questions from members.

With regard to the core issue of genetic gain in the national suckler herd, the reality is that despite profitability gains in the terminal traits, namely the meat, these gains have been offset by continued decline in the maternal traits in suckler cows, that is, milk and fertility. While the dairy herd is pushing on with close to optimal gains of around €20 per replacement per year, the replacements in the suckler herd are going backwards. These are very different industries in terms of structure but the suckler beef sector cannot afford to let on the table the increased profitability available through the use of better genetics. The beef data and genomics scheme gives us a chance to help reverse that trend.

The majority of the data used in genetic evaluations, the ultimate purpose of which is for the Euro-Star system, comes from the individual farms themselves. The 2008 suckler scheme changed the landscape in terms of data for suckler cattle in Ireland and the culture of data recording on suckler farms the scheme has brought about has had a dramatic impact on the quantity and quality of data that is available for use in genetic evaluations. The participation of on-farm recording, in conjunction with the Department's aim linkages, has also facilitated the linking of mart and factory data, which are very powerful data for genetic evaluations. That is why the genetic evaluation system available to Irish farmers is as powerful as it is, because of the high levels of integration in the various industry data capture systems.

On the question of what are Euro-stars and how are they calculated, in order to make it easier for beef farmers to quickly evaluate the genetic merit of an animal, a star rating system was introduced in 2011. The idea was that the animals would be divided into quintiles based on their genetic evaluations.

The top 20% are five star; the top 40%, four star and so on. The system has been successful in terms of farmers quickly grasping the genetic merit of an animal and in recent years the use of the Euro-star ratings has been widespread as part of the purchasing decisions on stock bulls. This has been demonstrated by the number of individual searches using the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation bull search engine which provides public access to the star ratings.

How do we know that the Euro-star system works?