The government deals in a lot of non-binding plans that nonetheless can have big impacts on industry. One recent outlook report could do just that with genetic technology for animal agriculture.
On Thursday, May 16, the USDA released its second “Blueprint for Animal Genome Research 2018-2027” (Blueprint) This report reviewed the impressive genetic gains set by the first Blueprint and widely achieved by the animal agriculture industry, and projected goals for the next decade.
“It sets direction for research, basically,” summarized Dr. Alison Van Eenennaam, University of California-Davis professor and Extension specialist in animal genomics and biotechnology, and one of the Blueprint’s 23 authors. She explained that the Blueprint has set funding priorities and works in conjunction with other goal-setting internal reports by the USDA.
“With the new plan, we are able to show the return on investment in the previous decade,” said USDA’s Agricultural Research Service’s (ARS’) National Program Leader Caird Rexroad in the USDA’s official announcement of the Blueprint.
The Blueprint quantified that return on investment where the dairy industry—repeatedly noted as the best example of success—was concerned. In the past decade, roughly $100 million was invested in genomics research in dairy cattle. This resulted in approximately $4 billion return over the past decade, just in increased net merit of artificial insemination bulls.
“These estimates capture only a fraction of the economic impact that genomic selection has had on the dairy industry,” the Blueprint noted.
The Blueprint pointed out that the beef industry has not seen the same speed of genetic improvements that other, more concentrated and intensely managed types of livestock have seen. This is mostly due to its slower adoption of breeding technologies like artificial insemination and genomic testing when compared to other species.
The path forward to 2027
The Blueprint begins with: “U.S. agriculture must dramatically adapt many of its management practices and uses of natural resources if the nation is to sustainably meet the food and fiber demands of current and future generations.”
It additionally notes the growing global population, the growing global middle class, and the ever-growing demand for animal-sourced protein among those populations.
“Increasing animal production will require gaining a deeper understanding of animal biology through genomics and associated science to enable the U.S. livestock, poultry, and aquaculture producers to maintain global competitiveness and adapt to changing climates and the need to reduced greenhouse gas emissions,” read the Blueprint.
“At the same time, farmers will need to combat diseases in the face of increased antimicrobial resistance and pressure from consumers and regulators to minimize the use of antibiotics. Finally, animal welfare will be improved through new production systems and management practices.”
The Blueprint outlines a number of goals for animal agriculture in the coming decade and how they might be achieved. Briefly, these include:
• Optimizing animal production through precision breeding and management, including through expanded traceability applications and wider implementation of existing precision technologies;
• Understanding genome biology to accelerate genetic improvement of economically important traits, including discovering and exploiting epigenetic factors;
• Reducing the effects of animal diseases, in part through increased information sharing and the development and implementation of automated phenotype data collection;
• Harnessing the microbiome to improve efficiency and sustainability;
• Training the next generation of animal scientists;
• Increasing and improving biotechnology and big data tools capable of analyzing the volume of data that can be generated by precision breeding and management; and
• Preserving genetic diversity in agricultural animals.
Van Eenennaam said that there are challenges to achieving these goals in the beef industry given its segmentation.
“A lot of the precision genetics or even precision farming that’s becoming all the rage in certain agronomic areas is going to be really hard to do in the beef industry because of the disjointed information flow, or lack thereof,” she explained.
She also expressed concern that the U.S. beef industry—due both to its segmentation and to existing regulations—will be at a disadvantage to other countries’ beef industries. Other countries that have full traceability, standardized data collection protocols, and centralized data repositories.
“For example, Ireland genotypes all cattle and all data—vet records, meat records, health records, everything—goes into a single government database,” she said, acknowledging the resistance in the U.S. cattle industry to such efforts.
“But without that, you can’t really get a lot of the benefits of this,” she added, speaking of precision agriculture. — Kerry Halladay,WLJ editor
