Tackling the future challenges of Organic Animal Husbandry - vTI

! Agriculture and Forestry Research, Special Issue No 362 (Braunschweig, 2012) ISSN 0376-0723
Download: www.vti.bund.de/en/startseite/vti-publications/landbauforschung-special-issues.html
bulls are registered with the national herd book as breeding bulls. Marketing by the foundation Bio-
KI (Organic AI) is primarily by e-mail, and augmented by meetings with farmers, glossy flyers and
newsletters. When semen is purchased and used, the calves that are born and kept for production
will be registered. In this way estimated breeding values will automatically be calculated and published
by the Dutch herd book organization.
The direct cost of the procedure until the semen is frozen is €2500. These costs are paid by the
owner/farmer who receives €5 per straw for the first 500 doses sold. The total price per straw is €8.
For the first 500 doses sold, €2 goes to distribution and €1 to promotion and marketing by Bio-KI.
For the second 500 doses, the farmer is paid €3, the distributor €2.50 and Bio-KI €2.50.
Results
The organization and set up of this breeding programme with five organic AI bulls and first sales is
our first result. Table 1 shows the performance of the bulls’ (grand)parents and their (expected)
breeding values. Up to June 2012, a total of 2,430 doses have been sold – 1,360 of the first bull
Opneij Wytze and an average of 268 doses of each of the other bulls – to some 100 organic farmers
and also some conventional farmers. The total number of doses sold will yield about 245 daughters.
One bull, Bio NB Jeroen already has 11 lactating daughters from natural mating at three farms. His
first breeding values for production can be found in Table 1, and he has positive breeding values for
fertility, claws, udder health, character and calving ease when used on Holsteins, although the reliability
of those breeding values are still low. The bull, Opneij Wytze will currently get many daughter
lactating and has already a positive estimated breeding value of 105 for calving ease.
Discussion
Initial results are the set-up, selection and sale of bulls plus the first breeding values for calving ease
results. Setting up a distinct breeding programme was described as ‘very complex’ due to the many
stakeholders involved (Nauta et al., 2009). The current scheme shows us that, by using existing facilities
and working with a small group of dedicated people, a breeding scheme can be achieved. A
growing group of farmers, also newly converting farmers, is getting interested in buying semen
from organic bulls. It is becoming clear that personal contact is important for selling semen. Breeding
companies often work as a cooperation with member farmers and invest in personal contacts
(meetings, farm visits) to stimulate the sales. In a scheme such as we have developed, we miss these
personal contacts. More time for contacts is needed but will increase the costs.
The price of semen is relatively low. Per bull, 500 straws need to be sold to recoup farmers’ direct
investment. The market is formed by some 250 farms that use AI every year on some 20,000 organic
milking cows plus female young stock. Pregnancy rate with AI are 50-60% so that in total >
40,000 doses would be needed for this population. However, many organic farmers breed a specific
cattle breed (Nauta, 2009) and do not need semen from other breeds. About 25% of organic farms
does breed purebred Holstein cows. The actual market for organic AI is thus smaller, but it should
be possible to sell up to 10,000 doses per year.
Selling semen is also a matter of trust. Most farmers have been members of a breeding cooperation
for a long time, often following in their parents’ footsteps, and are loyal to their organisation. They
are accustomed to the testing schemes and high reliabilities of estimated breeding values of conventional
breeding bulls. The young bull system does not have such reliable breeding values based on
statistics yet. We also select the bulls based on lifetime production. More than three lactations are
needed to establish that a cow is genetically predisposed to a high lifetime production and that her
performance is not due primarily to environmental factors (Haiger, 1998). To see such reliability
takes time and is therefore not used as a selection criteria by most conventional breeders. Farmers
have to
348