This week the Scottish Farmer hears from Declan Marren a beef farmer and agricultural advisor in Ireland on the plans for all cattle to be DNA tested.

The year 2023 will not be remembered with any great fondness by Irish farmers given weather woes high input costs and reduced farm gate prices across almost every sector, however, in years to come it is likely to be remembered as a watershed moment when the country embarked on a national genotyping programme which if the first significant step in DNA verifying the national herd in the coming years.

The National Genotyping Programme was launched in May of this year and the programme which is completely voluntary for farmers to sign up to aims to start by genotyping 800,000 breeding animals on beef and dairy farms across the Republic of Ireland in 2023 alone.

As an export-focused country, where out of every 10 animals reared to slaughter, nine must find a home outside of the Island, having and maintaining a competitive edge is a must. A fully DNA’ed herd allows for traceability not seen in any other country in the world currently. In the coming years, an Irish steak on a supermarket shelf in London, Madrid or Munich could be DNA sampled and traced back to the cow and bull in Ireland with 100% accuracy.

But the benefits of this exercise go far beyond traceability and deliver real benefits at farm level. Parentage recording errors at the point of calf registration are estimated to be around 18% - almost one in five animals with the incorrect sire and/or dam.

Data from these animals is being collated at every stage throughout the production system by the ICBF (Irish Cattle Breeding Federation) through on-farm data such as animal weights, and farmer data from specific schemes such as the new SCEP (Suckler Cow Efficiency Programme) such as calving ease, docility, and calf vigour. In addition to this, all mart weights and slaughter data such as carcase weight and grades all automatically fed back to the ICBF database.

This data then feeds into the national breeding indexes which provide key selection criteria for farmers for the future. Removing the errors in the parentage within this dataset has the potential to deliver a huge benefit to farmers from more accurate breeding indexes.

In addition to this, it will provide a huge amount of data for animal health issues such as TB and allow for bloodlines that are more susceptible to TB to be more negatively weighted within breeding indexes.

Finally, it will help farmers deliver on their environmental targets with Agriculture in Ireland signed up to a 25% reduction of emissions, based on 2018 levels by 2030. Again, with more accurate data breeding indexes can identify more efficient animals – producing a significant carcase weight at a younger slaughter age from a grass based diet.

In fact, on the beef side alone, a cost-benefit analysis carried out by Meat Industry Ireland (MII) has shown almost a 5:1 return on investment which could mean a net benefit to the sector of £570 million (€650 million) over the next 10 years based on accurate data increasing the rate of genetic gain combined with higher value animals being produced.

*Cost*

Currently, the cost of genotyping an animal is in the region of £16 (€18). In 2023, farmers who signed up for the programme will have all their breeding stock genotyped for free. This is being funded through European funding via the Brexit Adjustment Reserve (BAR) and will cost in the region of £20 million (€23 million).

The BAR fund aims to provide financial support to the European Member States, regions and sectors most affected by Brexit to deal with the adverse economic, social, territorial and, where appropriate, environmental consequences. Ireland, as the Member State most affected, has received a significant allocation of over €1 billion, or just over 20% of the entire Reserve.

In 2024, farmers in the scheme will pay £5.25/calf (€6) to DNA tag animals at birth. This cost will also cover the cost of the tag and postage. This payment will be matched by both the Department of Agriculture and the Industry Stakeholders MII on the beef side and Dairy Industry Ireland (DII) representing the dairy co-ops.

*Reduced workload at calving*

It was hoped that this programme would reduce the amount of data recording and paperwork for farmers during the busy calving period. However, this is not the case. Farmers must still record every calf’s, dam and sire individually. The reason behind this is that the genotype will verify the parentage and correct it if it is wrong. However, like all tissue sampling, there is expected to be around 2% of samples that cannot be tested due to not having a sufficient sample. If no parentage was recorded on farm then these animals would have no parentage data and this would hold up the issuing of a passport for the animal. This could have knock-on effects, especially for dairy farmers where calves are to be sold at a few weeks of age.

Currently, every calf in Ireland is tissue sampled for BVD at birth and this will continue for 2024. The tag for the other ear will now take a tissue sample for the genotyping programme.

The ICBF have said that the typical turnaround of 11 days from once farmers post the samples to having a passport issued for the animal, however, this could increase during peak calving season in spring to over two weeks.

*Genotyped National Herd*

This is a significant step towards a fully genotyped national herd in Ireland. Prior to this programme, around 500,000 breeding females were already genotyped (400,000 beef cows, 100,000 dairy cows) in Ireland through previous beef schemes and farmers doing it for breeding reasons. With an additional 800,000 breeding females genotyped this year, it will mean roughly 52% of the national herd (2.5 million breeding females – 1.6 million dairy cows and 900,000 beef cows) will be genotyped by the end of this year.

As an export-focused country, where out of every 10 animals reared to slaughter, nine must find a home outside of the Island, having and maintaining a competitive edge is a must.