Farmers adopting technology to improve sheep production - a nine year study

A review of the literature accessed 234 papers that referenced farm or farming systems research in New Zealand hill country. These were categorised into resource allocation/productivity, modelling, farm studies and sociology. Sociology was further categorised into social, cultural, resilience, policy and regulation, and system behaviour and change. Farming systems research developed over the 5 decades studied from 9 papers in 1960-1975, to a peak of 60 papers during the 1986-1995 decade. The number of papers accessed during the latest decade, 2006-2015, was 57. The focus of research has changed significantly from an initial emphasis on biophysical processes and productivity, peaking in the 1976-1985 decade and then tapering off. This provided data for the development of models that could generate many more comparisons at lower cost. Modelling of the biophysical farm and economic outcomes has been steady through the decades from 1986 to present. The impacts of policy and regulation have featured strongly in the 1986-1995 decade after agricultural deregulation, and again in the 2006-2015 decade as consumer and societal concerns about the environment have emerged. Resilience of the farming system, encompassing production, economic, social and environmental trade-offs, has emerged as a topic being most prevalent in the most recent decade from 2006-2015. The discipline of farm systems research has also matured over this time as a greater range of research techniques, over a wider range of subject matter have been applied. An evolution of the discipline has also seen the integration of the principles of complex adaptive systems into the work. Keywords: cultural, economic, environmental, farm systems, modelling, policy, production, regulation, resilience, social

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“…This is well documented through the Monitor Farm Programme and others (e.g. McIvor & Aspin 2001;Cocks et al 2002).…”

Section: Impacts Of Hill Country Farm Systems Researchmentioning

confidence: 80%

Farming systems research: purpose, history and impact in New Zealand hill country

Stevens¹,

Casey²,

Cousins³

2016

NZGA R&P Series

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“…The process of change and improvement takes time as illustrated by Cocks et al (2002) with average increases in lamb liveweight gain from birth to weaning of 20 g/day over 4 years. As farms implemented new systems the results were not always positive.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Using data from large scale farming operations to understand the importance of feeding the ewe to improve whole farm performance

Stevens¹,

Young²

2013

ProNZG

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The collection and use of data from large scale farming operations provided significant insights into drivers of sheep performance. These drivers included minimum two-tooth liveweight at tupping, ewe condition and pasture cover at lambing and the importance of weaning weight on whole farm performance. Using this data to demonstrate the influence of management decisions resulted in an increase in average lamb liveweight gain between birth and weaning of approximately 20 g/day in Landcorp Farming Ltd East Coast flocks over the 4 years of monitoring. Lambing percentage was harder to change, though individual farms increased lambing percentage by up to 35% by concentrating on increasing feed allocation and maintaining ewe body condition score during winter. Low liveweight in some two-tooth ewes was inversely related to the percentage of dries in a flock and prompted more emphasis on growing replacement stock. The programme shifted focus from short-term tactical feeding and management decisions to long-term strategies such as stock and sales policies that placed the breeding flock as the major priority. Keywords: breeding ewes, data, lambing percentage, lambs, liveweight gain, whole flock analysis.

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“…Pedigree sheep breeding is an international activity with high levels of trade of breeding stock occurring between countries. Growth and carcass composition traits are of high economic importance worldwide (Byrne et al., 2010 ; Cocks et al., 2002 ) and genetic selection of these traits has led to substantial economic gains in the global sheep industry (Amer et al., 2007 ; Conington et al., 2004 ; Jones et al., 2004 ). International genetic evaluations will allow for across‐country genetic selection of breeding stock.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Across‐country genetic evaluation of meat sheep from Ireland and the United Kingdom

Fitzmaurice

Conington

McDermott³

et al. 2022

J Animal Breeding Genetics

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Genetic evaluations in sheep have proven to be an effective way of increasing farm profitability. Much research has previously been conducted on producing within‐country genetic evaluations; however, to date, no across‐country sheep genetic evaluations have been produced between Ireland and the UK. The objective of the present study was to examine the feasibility of an across‐country genetic evaluation of live body weight and carcass composition traits for Texel sheep raised in Ireland and the UK. The benefit of genetic selection based on across‐country genetic evaluations, in comparison with within‐country genetic evaluations, was also quantified. Animal traits included early‐life and postweaning live body weights, and muscle and fat depth ultrasound measurements. Irish and UK data were combined, common animals with progeny with records in both countries were identified and a series of bivariate analyses were performed separately for each trait to produce across‐country genetic evaluations. Fixed effects included contemporary group, age at first lambing of the dam, parity of the dam (Ireland), dam age at lamb's birth (UK), a gender by age of the lamb interaction, a birth type by rearing type of the lamb interaction and country of birth of the lamb. Random effects included the animal additive genetic, dam maternal, litter common environment and residual effect. The model for postweaning weight, muscle depth and fat depth included only the animal additive genetic and litter common environmental random effects. Genetic correlations between the two countries ranged from 0.82 to 0.88 for the various traits. Across‐country breeding values were estimated for all animals and response to selection was predicted using the top 10 and top 20 sires in both within‐ and across‐country analyses for the two countries. Overall, results showed that rates of genetic gain could potentially increase from between 2.59% and 19.63% from selection based on across‐country genetic evaluations compared to within‐country evaluations alone. Across‐country evaluations are feasible and would be of significant benefit to both the Irish and UK sheep industries. In order to realize these potential gains though, there would need to be a switch in emphasis by sheep breeders towards using objective traits as their primary selection criteria.

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Farmers adopting technology to improve sheep production - a nine year study

Cited by 6 publications

References 1 publication

Farming systems research: purpose, history and impact in New Zealand hill country

Farming systems research: purpose, history and impact in New Zealand hill country

Using data from large scale farming operations to understand the importance of feeding the ewe to improve whole farm performance

Across‐country genetic evaluation of meat sheep from Ireland and the United Kingdom

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