Thursday, March 28, 2024

FROM THE RIDGE: Farmers need tools to identify desirable qualities

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I went to the launch of some new information on the ability to select sheep for meat quality. 
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Admittedly, if that was how the invitation was framed I might not have travelled the hour to attend but it was the prospect of fine food so I was more incentivised to disprove the old adage that there is no such thing as a free lunch.

The FarmIQ programme has garnered some scepticism over time.

A big problem for a programme like this is that with large-scale data collection and across year analysing, it takes quite some time for results to be able to be turned into demonstrable opportunities.

I was surprised to see this programme is now in its seventh year so it has been going for quite some time.

One facet of Silver Fern Farms’ FarmIQ has been its partnership with Landcorp’s Focus Genetics and others on improving meat quality.

There is no point presenting poor quality meat to our consumers but to some extent our breeding programmes have been doing just that.

It seems our focus on selecting for fast growth and high lean meat yield might adversely affect aspects of meat eating quality in sheep and other species for that matter.

If we want to be at the high end of the meat market we must be able to consistently offer good consumer eating experiences.

Tenderness, marbling, pH and meat colour all affect meat quality and this programme has shown some of these things are quite heritable meaning breeding programmes can make good progress to improve meat quality.

Tenderness and marbling, for example, are very heritable at 30% compared to weaning weight at 15% and number of lambs born at 9%.

We know the progress industry has made on these two traits in recent decades.

Colour is 17% and pH has 9% heritability. The latter has low variability in trait measurement and combined with its lower heritability means genetic gains will be slow but good variability in the other traits means gains could be quite promising.

But for breeders to be able to make these selection decisions on traits that require killing the animal to see how tasty it is (“That was the best meat I’ve ever eaten. I must breed from this animal … damn”) then different tools need to be developed.

And as I learned over my delicious lamb rack balanced with an excellent Hawke’s Bay wine, this is where this LambEQ (eating quality) programme funded by the Primary Growth Partnership has arrived.

The programme has allowed sheep to be genotyped for meat quality aspects and offers genomic predictions so terminal breeders can select from young animals based on their DNA rather than waiting several years for a progeny test.

The primary selection vehicle is an SNP chip that provides genetic information to the stud breeder to make those selection decisions earlier.

So, the sheep in this training population can now not only be selected on growth and meat yield but also ensuring meat quality is improved.

The technology in time will roll out to other terminal breeds and possibly be incorporated into maternal breeding programmes as well to augment the terminal genetics.

The challenge for the processing industry is to develop the tools so it can give growers hip-pocket feedback so we seek out the genetics that provide these qualities, thus making sure that as an industry we do consistently provide excellent consumer eating experiences to command those top premiums we require to remain in business.

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