Workshop Brings Together Industry Collaborators

The integrated system of U.S. dairy genetic evaluations relies on more than 60 industry organizations working together to turn genetic and phenotypic animal information into insights dairy farmers can use in their herds. Last week, CDCB welcomed 106 people from more than 30 of those organizations to Milwaukee, Wis., for the second biennial National Cooperator Database Workshop.

Designed to encourage shared problem-solving and cooperation among all sectors — dairy records providers, dairy records processing centers, National Association of Animal Breeders, Purebred Dairy Cattle Association, genomic nominators, and genomic laboratories — the workshop consisted of presentations by CDCB staff followed by small group discussions and then open dialogue among all attendees.

The group tackled some big topics during the event:

• How do we explain the value of contributing data to the National Cooperator Database while getting the most out of the data we already receive?
• How can we use new technologies to more efficiently move and store cow data?
• What will the implementation of single-step genetic evaluations mean for the integrated system and our industry?
• What selection tools are valuable in today’s farm environment?

To begin answering these questions, collaborators heard about the development of a Producer Campaign, the work being done on the Herd Portal project and novel data pipelines, the status of single-step evaluations, and future goals for Net Merit $ revisions.

Though these efforts will come with a learning curve, each represents a new opportunity to better support dairy farmers. Attendees provided thoughtful feedback and asked important questions for consideration as these projects move forward.

“CDCB is this: the family of collaborators that provide value to the system and dairy farmers,” said CEO João Dürr in closing the event. “The fact that our community here is not afraid of change makes progress possible.”