Cahill: Genotyping could improve quality of national herd

Beef cattle (Google)

The benefits of genotyping of the national herd has been highlighted in the Dáil by Tipperary TD Jackie Cahill.

The Cathaoirleach of the Oireachtas Agriculture Committee said the process is a prime example of the type of technology that can be utilised in order to reduce carbon emissions in the agri-food sector.

Speaking in the Dáil last night the Thurles Deputy outlined how genotyping has been shown to work on research farm he visited recently.

“They showed us animals that were fed the same, born roughly at the same time and they were just at the point of being ready for slaughter. There was 120kg live weight between the average of one bull and another.

“If we can get that genetic improvement into our beef animals with the same feeding, same carbon footprint etc that’s going to have a huge impact on reducing our emissions.”