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Jersey cows - Source: ONE News
Dairy New Zealand says it is looking at holding the sector's giant database of dairy cattle and their performance out of the commercial arena and using it as part of a huge data warehouse providing a range of information on the industry.
During the start-up of Fonterra, farmers fought to have the Livestock Improvement Corporation held by the Dairy Board declared an "industry good".
LIC controls the largest bank of dairy herd genetic and management data in the world, with historical data on millions of cows and sires and their performance. That data may now be able to provide not only genetic information but to allow the government to track individual animals.
"Opportunities to use the database to support government and industry functions such as traceability, and new farm management tools based on on-farm data collection" were being investigated, Dairy New Zealand chairman John Luxton said.
The run-up to the Fonterra mega-merger included legislation passed in 1999 to allow LIC to become a stand-alone company owned by sharemilkers and other dairy farmers.
But since then, the database has become immensely valuable because it provides a useful tool not only for exploring the national dairy herd's genetics, but identifying marker genes for sequences with commercially useful breeding traits. These traits include disproportionately high protein content, notable levels of milkfat, or resistance to common health problems.
In May, a herd improvement database review committee led by Massey University scientist Robert Anderson, former Fonterra director Harry Bayliss and Synlait chairman Graeme Milne recommended the dairy core database be restructured to run as an "industry good" managed by an organisation with no commercial mandate.
Anderson envisaged the creation of a one-stop "data warehouse" for the whole industry. This would include the data used for herd improvement, and a national repository of non-genetic data capable of being synchronised with a proposed national animal identification scheme using electronic tags which could be automatically scanned and linked to things such as ownership, and milk and meat yields.
The core database is managed by LIC under herd testing regulations to aid herd performance recording and enable research and animal evaluation of the genetic productive potential of the national herd for the benefit of all New Zealand dairy farmers.
The committee also called for a national dairy database, incorporating the core database with other industry and government information.
Luxton said on Tuesday the industry body was analysing the scope, costs and benefits of such an integrated dairy industry data network.
His staff were working through the Anderson Report, which had painted a big vision for the industry "which is exciting, but not without its issues".
The evolution of genomic selection technology - using those marker genes to select cows with desirable traits - relied on the database for the underpinning cow performance information, and there was now an opportunity to be looking at extracting the maximum future value out of the database.
To retain the New Zealand dairy cow as the world's best grazing-based dairy animal, the database must in future be able to accommodate cow information from a wider variety of breeding, herd testing and on-farm sources.
"It also needs to continue to allow commercial operators to access this information to make further innovative gains for New Zealand dairy farmers," said Luxton.
Dairy NZ would offer the industry recommendations on the next steps, he said.
LIC chairman Stuart Bay has previously offered support for a
national database or warehouse run by an independent non-profit
organisation, but has warned farmers to beware of corporate raiders
"like those who reduced the apple industry to a shadow of what it
could have been and who now are trying to do the same to the
kiwifruit industry".
