Researchers working to futureproof NZ’s livestock
What if New Zealand’s cows and sheep not only contributed less to climate change, but were also better suited to live in the environment created by it?
Scientists and farmers are working together to fast-track evolution, breeding for environmental efficiency and profitability.
New Zealand artificial breeding companies LIC and CRV have notched up early success in the first year of their cow breeding research, funded by the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre; while Pāmu (the brand name for Landcorp Farming Ltd), the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and Focus Genetics (a Pāmu subsidiary) are working on a Sheep
of the Future programme funded by
AgResearch.
“The sector’s done a really good
job to get us to where we are. We’re
turbocharging that,” LIC chief executive David Chin said. “One of the things Kiwis don’t understand is that we already have some of the most efficient cows in the world.’’
But traditionally, breeding programmes have focused on profitability, or financial efficiency: fertility rates, production rates, and immunity, for example. Climate change had brought with it considerations like how a cow would be able to handle heat and other extreme weather, and in the case of this research, methane emissions. Chin said, “For us, it’s about: Is that cow going to be efficient in 2050?” In the first phase of the research project, LIC and CRV worked with Pāmu to identify bulls that produced less methane by measuring their burps. They found big differences, with some producing up to 20% less methane than the average. The next step is to test how this variability is transmitted to their daughters with 200 bred from the high methane emitters and 200 from the lowest emitters. It would be about eight more years before the results of the research were clear, but “the beauty of genetics is that it’s permanent”, Chin said.
Once farmers started breeding for these traits the impacts would grow exponentially as they spread. “Once it gets going, it will have a stairway effect.”
The work builds on the decade’s worth of research AgResearch and the New Zealand Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Research Centre did around breeding low-methane sheep.
It’s being taken further with the Sheep of the Future programme – a seven-year collaboration between Pāmu, MPI and Focus Genetics, a Pāmu subsidiary, with support from AgResearch. Pāmu chief executive Mark Leslie said the purpose of the stateowned enterprise was to support the wider New Zealand farming sector.
The multiple farms it owned and leased throughout the country offered varying conditions and climates to test and conduct trials in a commercial setting, he said.
Genetics offered a great tool to prepare for the future, Leslie said, likening it to accelerating natural selection. Apart from methane emissions, disease resistance and heat tolerance, Sheep of the Future is also looking at farming finer wool beyond arid areas and producing sheep for sub-tropical areas with a focus on meat production.
Scientists were leveraging genetics from other parts of the world – like South Africa and the Middle East – where sheep were suited to hotter conditions, Leslie said.
Leslie expected the seven-year project to lower production costs and enhance farming businesses’ viability while contributing to New Zealand's environmental and climate obligations.”
Agriculture Minister Todd McClay recently announced a $20 million partnership with Beef + Lamb NZ to eradicate the impact of facial eczema in pastoral animals. Facial eczema costs farmers $332 million a year, affecting growth rates, fertility and production in livestock, McClay said.
“The programme will support multiple approaches, building on research, and bringing together many of the country’s top researchers,” he said.