Breeding cattle for a more efficient and sustainable milk and meat production Oscar González-Recio, J. Pryce, M.E. Goddard, B. Hayes EURO FOOD June, Alicante (Spain)

Heading billion United Nations (Population Division) 7.5 billion 10 billion?

Heading Producing high quality protein Animal production aims to transform inputs from plants into high quality protein

Heading % improvement 330kg meat per tonne of feed590 kg meat per tonne of feed Improvements in efficiency of poultry

Heading 1746 litres/year 350 kg liveweight 5.6 litres/kg liveweight 6890 litres/year (ADHIS) 600 kg liveweight 11.5 litres/kg liveweight Improvements in efficiency of cows Doubled efficiency through dilution of maintenance 1950

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GROSS EFFICIENCY Faeces Energy Loss Maintenance Growth (Muscle & Fat) Heifers Energy Loss Maintenance Growth (Muscle & Fat) 1 st Lactation Energy Loss Maintenance Milk Subsequent Lactations Milk Fat deposition

Heading How much do they really eat? Which cow is the most efficient converter of feed into product?

Heading Historically only through indirect indicators (live weight) Importance: Feeding is 50% of production cost in animal farms Need to produce more food with the same resources Climate change might lower the amount of natural resources or artificial plantations Feed efficiency is associated with a lower amount of GHG emissions Selection for gross efficiency Difficult to measure (expensive infrastructure; experimental farms)

Heading Use of massive genomic information in the breeding programs GENOMIC SELECTION Definition

Heading GENOMIC SELECTION How it works DATA DNA Experimental farms SNPs

Heading Feed intake unit EID reader Feed bin Load cells

Heading Heifers and Cows Growth and Milk Yield

Heading 6890 litres/year 600 kg liveweight 20 kg DM/d of feed 6890 litres/year 600 kg liveweight 19 kg DM/d of feed What’s their real efficiency? Cow B is more efficient than cow A 1 kg/d at $0.3/kgDM is worth $110/cow/year

Heading GENOMIC SELECTION How it works DATA DNA Experimental farms Commercial farms DNA Breeding decisions in commercial farms based on feed efficiency Genomic breeding value SNPs Pass favorable genes onto next generations

Heading Link research “reference” populations

Heading Residual feed intake (RFI) Can calculate in growing and lactating cows Difference between actual feed intake and predicted feed intake from energy demand Use dry matter intake (DMI), liveweight (LWT) and average daily gain (ADG), body condition score (BCS) and milk DMI = b 1 LWT b 2 ADG + e e = DMI-(b 1 LWT b 2 ADG) RFI RFI = DMI – ([Milk] + LWT BCS + ΔLWT)

Heading Feed efficiency FE= energy in -energy out RFI = DMI – ([Milk] + LW BCS + ΔBW) e = DMI - (b 1 LWT b 2 ADG) RFI heifers cows

Heading Factors influencing RFI RFI = DMI-(b 1 LWT b 2 ADG)

Heading Genotyped individuals Lactating Australian Holstein cows Growing Australian 6 month old Holstein heifers Lactating UK/NLD Holstein cows Sources Growing heifers and lactating cows from Rutherglen and Ellinbank Overseas cows from UK and NLD Will grow over time 120 additional lactating cows added per year from Ellinbank >6000 cows from gDMI Reference population for residual feed intake Cow (234) Aussie Heifer (843) Aussie Cow (954) UK/NLD

Heading Feed saved Residual feed intake DGV Maintenance from Liveweight BV ABVs Annual feed savings for growth and lactating stages of life RFI only available for genotyped Holsteins Holsteins that are not genotyped and other breeds have feed saved calculated using maintenance requirements only Breeding value definition Mixed Model G-BLUP Pryce et al. (2014) JDS97: 537 González-Recio et al. (2014) JDS 97: 3883 Pryce et al. (2015) JDS In press

Heading What’s the impact? Daughters of bulls like D, G and J predicted to eat 1% less feed than average If all 1.7 million dairy cows in Australia ate 1% less feed this would save 103,700 tDM/yr of feed (~$31million) This could free up 13k ha of land: more cows? Other crops?

Heading Feed efficiency reduces GHG emissions (CH 4 ) Courtesy of Peter Moate Basarab et al., 2013

Heading Feed saved is the new breeding value for feed efficiency in Australia and is measured in kg of feed saved per year through improved maintenance Feed saved is available for farmers to choose the sires in their farms Improving feed efficiency is important for livestock farmers to be sustainable into the future Less feed used for animal production More crops available for human consumption Less use of land, available for other uses (other crops, natural resources) Summary

Heading Thank you!