The outcomes of genetic gain include improved milking efficiency, greater cow robustness, and better on-farm profitability, which contributes approximately $400 million to the New Zealand dairy economy every year.

Genetic gain is the result of a mathematical equation:

Modern genomic technologies allow even faster rates of gain. Here is why:

The goal with genomic selection is to increase the rate of genetic improvement in dairy animals, mainly by narrowing the five-year gap in the generation interval that occurs when using daughter proofs. Genomic evaluation allows our scientists to evaluate a bull’s genetic merit with more accuracy at a younger age.

Over the last three decades LIC has invested heavily in improving the accuracy of its animal evaluation system, with improved data providing better predictions on breeding worth for our farmers. The result of this scientific research is LIC’s Single Step Animal Model (SSAM), which combines ancestry, phenotypic and genomic information all in one step to produce an LIC genomic BW (gBW).

LIC incorporates genomic information in animal evaluations, both for daughter proven and genomic bulls, providing benefits to farmers, including our British farmers, such as access to elite genomic sires and better breeding value estimations for slowly expressed traits such as longevity.