At the end of May, Lactanet hosted the International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR) annual conference in Montreal, Quebec. The last time the conference was in Canada was in 1994 in Ottawa. Experts presented from all over the world and attendees learned about different technology systems used internationally (in person or online). In a closing session of the conference, chair members were able to present take-home messages from their respective sessions.
Sustainability
Perhaps the most popular subject discussed during the weeklong conference was sustainability – “… the efficient, long-term production of safe, high-quality agricultural product, in a way that protects and improves the natural environment, the social and economic conditions of the farmers, their employees and local communities, and safeguards the health and welfare of all farmed spaces,” as described by ICAR.
“Sustainability is a priority internationally,” said Filippo Miglior, chair and member of the ICAR Sustainability Task Force. “Some elements of sustainability were presented this week: France discussed heat stress; Australia discussed calf vitality; Italy discussed methane emissions. We can see that this is a priority all over the world,” he explained.
Each one of the panel members noted the importance of making management decisions with sustainability in mind.
“The Sustainability Task Force sees that it is ICAR’s role to identify the key traits in recording that affect sustainability, provide definitions of these key traits and harmonize the measurement methods of these key traits,” Miglior continued.
Miglior called on the help of the members of ICAR to introduce services to help customers track sustainability to further their efforts in making sustainable practices a global movement.
Sharing data
After years spent gathering important data to advance genetics, productivity, etc., the global dairy industry has found that not everyone measures data in the same way, names indexes the same way or defines traits in similar matters; this poses a bit of an issue when trying to compare data from different parts of the world.
“Trait definitions vary,” chair member Birgit Gredler-Grandl said. “We need to harmonize these definitions in order to really tap into the answers this data could tell us.”
During the question-and-answer portion of this panel, an attendee brought up a point that the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is expecting around a 2% increase in milk production worldwide by 2050 and asked panel members what ICAR foresees as a solution to this problem.
International collaboration, i.e., sharing data, was the answer given.
“We are no longer competing with each other,” said chair member Christian Bumgartner. “Now it’s like we’re competing against other industries.”
The panel agreed that for the global industry to work together, the advantage of sharing all of this data must be bigger than not sharing. However, that advantage might not be big enough quite yet.
Not losing focus
During the question-and-answer portion of this panel, one producer stated that although all of these technological advances are great and the sustainability movement is important, it’s equally as important to not become hyper-focused on one goal and forget about all the work put into the progress that has already been made. He mentioned the movement for carbon neutrality – a great goal but one that might make the industry less focused on other practices that have made great improvements over the past few years.
His statements were met with a round of applause, and panel members commented on the validity of the statement.
To learn more about ICAR visit International Committee for Animal Recording.
