On June 15, a draft “Business Plan Summary” for the production of genetic evaluations was made public for consideration by the full Council and the industry. Developed by a sub-committee including the CEO’s of several AI and breed organizations, the plan calls for a board of directors composed of three people from the four sectors of the industry… the breed associations, DHI organizations, dairy records processing centers and AI. Additionally, two non-voting seats would be established for possible new entities to be at the table, possibly several animal health companies that have active genomic testing programs.
Under this plan, the Council will have the opportunity to put out for bid the actual processing of records and production of evaluations. If an outside service provider is selected, procedures will be in place to safeguard all production and type data.
The financial plan estimates the annual expense for the first three years of $1.15 million, $1.6 million and $1.8 million. Initial capital will be required. The plan calls for an amount to be contributed by the four sectors equivalent to the first year’s income, assessed equally among the four groups in quarterly payments. New entities might also have to contribute capital in order to participate.
Operating income will be provided by charges for genomic testing of both females and males as well as for bulls in AI. The fee for an individual female will range from $0 to $15, depending on the status of the herd from which the female comes. Those herds providing data to the system through DHI testing and type classification will be charged less.
The fee for males up to 15 months of age will range from $20 to $200 with a similar consideration for herd owners providing data. If a male enters AI service the range will be from $800 to $1400, again depending on the status of the owner.
North American owners will pay less than international owners.
The current program in place allowing only major studs to obtain genomic tests on bulls will expire Mar. 31, 2013, so the pricing noted above will be available to all bull owners, whether they are individual breeders, syndicates or other AI groups.
The complete draft document may be viewed online beginning Monday morning, June 18 at www.holsteinworld.com/extra.php?id=62 The Council is seeking comments from dairymen and industry participants until July 16. Feedback may be sent to Council directors, member organizations and officers, as listed on the web document. Or e-mail may be sent directly to <comments@councildairycattlebreeding.com>

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 16th, 2012 at 8:08 am by jhastings and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.