Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Wednesday, 10 May 2000

Vol. 518 No. 6

Written Answers. - Beef Herd.

John Bruton

Ceist:

230 Mr. J. Bruton asked the Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development his views on the decline in the genetic merit of the beef herd in Ireland over the past ten years as reflected in carcase quality; if this is attributable to a reduction in use of artificial insemination due to the movement from full-time to part-time farming with consequent movement towards the use of natural service bulls which may not be of the high genetic quality of artificially inseminated bulls. [13022/00]

Minister for Agriculture, Food and Rural Development (Mr. Walsh)

The deterioration in recent years in the carcase classification grades achieved by Irish beef cattle can be attributed to several factors including changes in the numbers and quality of cattle exported live, increased usage of Holstein genetics in the dairy herd, a drop in the usage of AI from beef breeds and the absence of sufficient quality based price differentials for beef carcases.

Beef cattle breed improvement activities in Ireland were, until recent times, fragmented between a number of organisations including my Department, AI organisations and breed societies. However, the pooling of resources and expertise to form the recently established Irish Cattle Breeding Federation, ICBF, is providing a real opportunity to make significant progress in developing the breed characteristics of our beef cattle. One of the main objectives of ICBF is to improve the genetic merit of the national herd particularly by improving genetic evaluation and information on breeding quality. Breeding objectives are being clearly defined in the context of changing market requirements and farming systems. ICBF is working to identify our top bulls through genetic evaluation and the use of sophisticated IT systems. It will then be for all the relevant interests in the industry to promote the widespread use of those selected bulls.

Teagasc is now also using focused programmes to pro-actively promote the production of quality beef on a cost effective profitable basis using efficient breeding and feeding systems. All of these measures will assist farmers in today's production and market led environment to produce quality beef more efficiently.