Livestock Improvement Corporation Ltd (LIC) is a New Zealand farmer-owned cooperative that provides a range of solutions to improve the productivity and prosperity of farmers.
With origins dating back to 1909, when the first organised routine herd testing service commenced, LIC has a long history of providing world-leading dairy innovations internationally, including to UK dairy farmers for more than 30 years.
Since the early 1990’s we have been delivering the very best of LIC’s leading-edge genetics and solutions to the UK, and by doing so, helping British farmers become more prosperous, productive and secure their future.
LIC has pioneered some of the biggest innovations that provide today’s farmers with a competitive edge, including the systematic testing of milk quality, Long Last Liquid (fresh) semen, DNA technology to genomically identify and help select elite sires; and more recently a short gestation bull team bred to deliver offspring up to 10 days early.
Today, LIC’s products and services include: dairy genetics, herd recording software, herd testing, DNA parentage verification, farm advisory services, integrated parlour automation systems and milk testing sensors.
- Three out of four New Zealand dairy cows are sired by an LIC bull
- Over 10 million milk samples are analysed by LIC’s herd testing service each year (collected from 8,100 herds)
- Over 4 million straws of fresh semen are despatched for insemination to cows all over NZ during spring mating period (135,000 straws on peak day)
- We export over 1 million straws of frozen semen to more than 20 countries around the world
- 827,000 animal samples (DNA and milk) are analysed each year for disease identification, gene testing and parentage verification
- LIC’s animal identification and information management system is used by the majority of NZ dairy farmers
LIC’s head office is in Hamilton, New Zealand with Cogent as our distributer in the UK. Offices are also located in Ireland and Australia.
In NZ, LIC employs more than 700 permanent staff, with seasonal staff swelling the workforce to 2000 during New Zealand’s peak dairy mating and herd testing season during spring.
As a farmer-owned cooperative, all LIC profit is returned to its farmer owners/shareholders in dividends or reinvested into research and development (R&D). This commitment to R&D and new product development continues today with LIC’s strategy to deliver innovation led growth, with LIC being one of New Zealand’s agricultural sector’s largest private investors.
LIC’s Sire Proving Scheme is one of the largest globally, and this rigorous, four-year programme has been producing genetically superior bulls since 1961. Our Sire Proving Scheme produces many of New Zealand’s best bulls, with graduates from the scheme dominating the Ranking of Active Sires (RAS) List. SPS farmers help ‘prove’ the worth of the bull genetics, and therefore make performance improvement of the national dairy herd possible. The scheme has an impressive track record, having increased the productivity of New Zealand’s dairy cows and contributed billions to the national economy since it was established.
Whatever the challenges of the times or the marketplace, our job will remain the same.
That job is to continue to improve the genetics of dairy cows globally, improve the information that farmers have and the way they use it, and improve profitability through smart and innovative technology. Because, as we all know, there’s always room for improvement.
