Alberta Beef Magazine - BeefNews.com

Centre for Genomics Livestock Technology takes on a new role! by Bonnie Warnyca
May, 2010

Livestock Gentec - an Alberta Ingenuity Centre, (formerly the Alberta Bovine Genomics Program) renowned for a number of technological advancements for the Alberta/Canadian livestock industry, now has on a new role as the 'bridge' between livestock genomics research and the cattle producer.

"Some refer to this gap or ravine between the two as the 'valley of death', suggests the Centre's CEO, Dr. Stephen Moore. "Under the Alberta Bovine Genomics program, we have produced some predictive tests for a lot of the quality production traits and efficiency traits in cattle and these have been commercialized by industry. In our new role, we will continue to do genomic research, but as important or perhaps more importantly, we will follow this technology to find out what the true value is to the various members of the beef value chain. Before adopting any new technology, everyone needs to know the return on investment. This is certainly a piece of the puzzle that has been missing in order to move production efficiencies forward."

The Centre is a functional unit housed in a suite of offices in College Plaza on the edge of the University of Alberta campus. The laboratories are located within the University. Some forty individuals work at the Centre including five scientists, post doctorate fellow students, and Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada scientists. Partnerships are already in place with Alberta Agriculture and Food, the veterinary schools at the University of Calgary and there are some cross appointments in the works for scientists at the University of Guelph. In this new era of increased collaboration, Moore expects to speed up the process for technological advancements. He explains, "We are seeking to eliminate any duplication and bring everyone together on the same page. Collaboration between the University of Alberta and the University of Guelph strengthens both of our research activities. While we have been able to use the packing plant at Lacombe for some of the research, it is often difficult to get in there. U of G also has a packing plant which will provide some extra capacity. This extended cooperation will also involve international partnerships to share appropriate information."

Moore stresses that they are not trying to set up another industry sector and compete. The value index information will be funneled into existing industry structures such as to breed associations and commercial breeding companies.

"Within two years because of our funding restraints," he says, "we must show some results. With our present technology we can achieve this much quicker, perhaps within two rounds of the production cycle. Traceability must be interconnected with the research. If we can't follow an animal closely through the production system, we can't predict where the return on investment is and how much."

"We know the technology works as far as predicting the outcome," continues Moore. "But capturing the value of that outcome is not as clear-cut. The breeding sector must be rewarded for improving traits in their cattle. If they breed a higher feed efficiency trait into their herd - how much is that worth to the feeder? The only way to be 100 percent sure that the animal at the end of the production cycle is the animal you said it was at the beginning, is with a DNA test."

The Centre is looking to partner with the breeding community as well as members of the feed industry to follow thousands of commercial animals through the system to determine an index of value for producers to follow. Beefbooster is one organization that didn't wait for the results. In 2007, Beefbooster tissue sampled their entire seedstock herd taking the guesswork out of multi sired pasture parentage. The DNA technology, that was developed at the Centre and commercialized by Merial, allows Beefbooster to increase their selection indexes and link sire and dam to the calf which in turn offers more accurate prediction of traits.

Beefbooster has been working with the Centre for years and calls it their best kept secret. Together, they have achieved two major milestones in research technology this past year.

"We were able to calculate Estimated Breeding Values (EBV) for Net Feed Efficiency for our TX strain bulls which are our terminal cross, feedlot cattle," reports Beefbooster CEO Jennifer Stewart-Smith. "Since Dr. Moore arrived at the Centre ten years ago, we've been working with his team to develop a new profitability selection index for Beefbooster cattle. This is a bio economic model that takes into account all the costs associated with producing cattle and the rates. It's a huge calculation."

"This year, for the first time," says Stewart-Smith, "our customers selected their sires using a more robust index which includes a profitability index. By combining information from Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development, the University of Alberta, the College of Animal Science and Technology, Sichuan Agricultural University in China, Canfax, and industry feed values, we built these bio economic models. By calculating price movement in one area and leaving everything else constant, for instance, we can determine suggested profitability."

"These economic weights were developed using decades of information collected on Beefbooster animals on several different traits, including emphasis on fertility, followed by carcass and growth traits. The more animal data that we have increases the accuracy of the EBVs, which then increases the accuracy of the index. We have accuracies for some of these traits reaching 90%. It's only going to get better by continuing to do parentage tests. What has taken seven years to achieve an EPV for the TX bulls, should now take half the time or less to isolate more production-related traits."

Moore recently returned from a trip to Brazil, a country where there are 35 times more cattle than in Canada. "We cannot compete for long in the commodity market," he says. "We have to do something different to differentiate the Canadian beef product. Country-of-Origin labeling in the U.S. may just end up helping us with our marketing of a differentiated product. The Americans are working hard to reduce their cost of production and we need to combine efficiencies with selective character trait selection to move ahead."

Again, within two breeding cycles, the Centre hopes to be able to connect at least two links of the value chain which would be an enormous step in the right direction. Once the breeders and feeders are linked then the task is to get the packer linkage. While many innovative purebred producers have, for the most part, held back from including DNA in their decision making, the combination of a less expensive test and a definitive dollar return could quickly change all that. "It may well be that what looks like a large cost initially, may return a lot of money," says Moore thoughtfully. "Or, breeding for a certain trait may have limited return. Until we put together a value index we just don't know.

We may be able to then react very quickly to the needs and wants of the consumer and track that back for characteristic trait selection."

Another of the legacies of the Centre is in the training of a new generation of scientists. One particular student was initially hired by Merial, the genomics company which commercialized the centre's gene collection work. Beefbooster has Dr. Elisa Marques, a Dr. Moore Post Op Fellow, now working with them. Part of her position is to communicate the value and the applications of the new indexes to producers. Dr. Marques is an Alberta Ingenuity R & D Associate Award Winner. This fellowship presents opportunities to recent PhD graduates, who show great promise in research, top work for Alberta companies to help drive innovation.

Beefbooster has always been ahead of the science-based decision-making curve. For more than 30 years they have been using words such as uniformity and predictability as the cornerstone of their breeding profile. Beefbooster bulls have sired more than 1.7 million calves in western Canada.

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