ICBF - Ireland

I met with the Irish Cattle Breeding Federation on Friday of last week to learn more about what specifically they do and their role in agriculture in Ireland.  As it turned out I also had an excellent tour of the area where they are located as I got very lost driving to the meeting.  Their office is in Bandon, County Cork in the south west part of Ireland. From their website “ICBF exists to benefit our farmers, our agri-food industry and our wider communities through genetic gain. We do this by the application of science and technology to ensure that our farmers and industry make the most profitable and sustainable decisions, through the use of the services provided from the ICBF cattle breeding database.”  They work in both beef and dairy and are an interesting model.  

The centre of their operation is their database.  Like everything else right now, the more data you have the better and this organization has it all.  Also taken from their website is this graphic which represents the data flow that they use.  They use data points from all other organizations to provide a service that helps steer genetic progress and to help individual producers excel.

At first I had to think “Wow! they really have this data sharing concept down in Ireland” then after talking to people there realized that because of the high level of government involvement in agriculture and the subsequent regulations imposed on them, much of this data is mandatory and then can easily be shared.  Producers when they sign up are asked for authorized the sharing of the data with AI companies for example and producers do pay for the ICBF service (performance reports and consulting assistance).    

Having all the data from all the breeds allows ICBF to also do a number of benchmarking studies and offers the industry Across Breed Genetic Evaluations.  For an example of what their reports look like, you can view a bull on their site and can see their Euro Star ranking system that works within breed as well as across breeds. 

They also assist in the administration of a number of government funding programs which are linked to increased data collection for their database. Often to encourage data submission there is a financial incentive.  Currently there is also a program running where livestock producers participate in discussion groups with other producers in their area to discuss issues and learn from each other.  This has been very successful so far and I have come across this in other countries as well.  From the outside looking in, it appears to be a great mentoring opportunity for all involved.  I hope to see something like this happening in Canada in the near future.  

With  meetings such as this I always seem to come away with ideas and inspiration this meeting with ICBF was no different.  I hope to continue to observe what they are doing and to learn from them in the future as well.