Ethical problems and breeding goals Subproject 1: Dairy cattle - - PDF document

Low Input Breeds - ECO AB Symposium, Wageningen (The Netherlands) March 15-16, 2011 29.03.2011 1

Development of integrated livestock breeding and management strategies to improve animal health, product quality and performance in European organic and ‘low input’ milk, meat and egg production

Ethical problems and breeding goals Subproject 1: Dairy cattle

Henner Simianer Department of Animal Sciences Georg-August-University Göttingen, Germany Wageningen, March 16, 2011

• Definition of the

breeding goal Design and optimization

• f the breeding program
• incl. choice of

breeding technologies Implementation

The animal breeding process

External (economy, society, law, global trends) Breeding process

Low Input Breeds - ECO AB Symposium, Wageningen (The Netherlands) March 15-16, 2011 29.03.2011 2

3 usable arable land (kHa) arable land (m2) per capita

Livestock Revolution Projection until 2050: Increase of food production ~1% p.a. Constant ressources Increase of ressource efficiency disproportionately high increase of animal production (~ 2 to 3% p.a.)

Global Trends

Population (mio)

Low Input Breeds - ECO AB Symposium, Wageningen (The Netherlands) March 15-16, 2011 29.03.2011 3

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 1995 1997 1999 2001 2003 2005 2007 Jahr kg

> 50 % of increase of productivity through breeding

Protein yield (1. Lactation)

• f Holstein-Friesian-cows

54 % genetic progress 46 % improved production technology

protein yield relative to base year 1995 (kg)

(data source: VIT Jahresbericht 2008)

birth year phenotypic genetic

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

New Zealand NL-DPS DK/SWE FRA-ISU Germany-RZG USA-NM$ Italy-ILQM Canada-LPI USA-TPI

Performance Type SCS Longevity Fertility Others

2000

Breeding goals in Holstein Friesian

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90% 100%

New Zealand DK/SWE/FIN Italy-PFT NL-DPS FRA-ISU CAN-LPI USA-TPI Germany 2005 Germany 2010

Performance Type SCS Longevity Fertility Others

2005

Low Input Breeds - ECO AB Symposium, Wageningen (The Netherlands) March 15-16, 2011 29.03.2011 4

20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180 Production traits vs. functional traits – options for genomic selection

economic weight realized genetic trend GS GS – functional traits

Genomic selection for fuctional traits

Why is this so? low heritability of functional traits unfavourable genetic correlations to production traits difference in quantity and quality of performance test data

Technologies in dairy cattle breeding

Artificial insemination (> 80% of matings) Sperm sexing (< 1% of matings) Embryo transfer (< 1% of cows) Ovum pick up/in vitro fertilization (< 1% of cows) 54k SNP chip genotyping (~1000 to 2000 male calves per month in Germany) based on DNA-containing tissue (blood, semen, hair, milk) All technologies socially accepted and in routine use Use of AI: no difference between conventional and ecological dairy breeding (Schmidtko, 2007) 54k genotyping quantitatively ‚exploded‘ within no time

Low Input Breeds - ECO AB Symposium, Wageningen (The Netherlands) March 15-16, 2011 29.03.2011 5

0,1 0,2 0,3 0,4 0,5 0,6 0,7 h2=0.1 h2=0.3 h2=0.5

Relationship under genomic selection

Simulation study (Chen et al., 2011): 5 generations of selection on pedigree-based BLUP or on genomic breeding values Accuracy of estimated breeding values

0,00 0,01 0,02 0,03 0,04 0,05 0,06 h2=0.1 h2=0.3 h2=0.5

Average relationship of top 10% animals

0,01 0,02 0,03 0,04 0,05 0,06 0,07 CFI CEP SP FA SCS FL FUA RUH UO RA UD RW FY PY FP PP

Relationship

Relationship under genomic selection

Empirical study (Chen, 2011): average relationship of the top 50

• ut of 816 young Holstein bulls selected based on pedigree-based

BLUP or on genomic breeding values for different traits

h2 = 0.04 h2 = 0.45

Low Input Breeds - ECO AB Symposium, Wageningen (The Netherlands) March 15-16, 2011 29.03.2011 6

Global trends require an increase of animal production per year by ~ 2 to 3 per cent until 2050 Breeding makes up for > 50 per cent of the progress in productivity With conventional breeding tools, a genetic progress of ~ 1 per cent per year seems to be the limit (under favourable conditions)

Conclusions and theses

Due to limited ressources (land, water, minerals etc.) the increase has to be ressource-neutral (or ressource-saving), improving ressource efficiency will be most relevant (also, or even especially, true for low input systems) Genomic breeding approaches have the potential to boost the level of genetic progress towards the necessary rate Potential to genomically select very good young bulls to be used for natural service on farm Technologies used in genomic breeding programs (AI, ET, OPU/IVF, SNP-genotyping) are well established and socially accepted Both breeding goals and breeding technologies need an ethical assessment Additional genetic progress through genomic selection provides

• ptions to over-proportionally improve traits related to fitness,

fertility and animal welfare Waiving the possibility to increase productivity and/or ressource efficiency by an (‚ethically‘ motivated) non-use of technological

• ptions also has an ethical dimension and needs justification

Genomic selection has a ‘built-in’ mechanism to reduce the inbreeding rate (esp. when selecting for functional traits)

Conclusions and theses

Low Input Breeds - ECO AB Symposium, Wageningen (The Netherlands) March 15-16, 2011 29.03.2011 7

The authors gratefully acknowledge co-funding from the European Commission, under the Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, for the Collaborative Project LowInputBreeds (Grant agreement No 222623)

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