In October, Catriona Millen from ABRI’s Extension Services team headed to Southern Africa to present at several industry events. The first of these was the Livestock Registering Federation (LRF) Stockman School, which each year attracts several hundred producers from across Southern Africa. In 2022, the theme was Building a profitable cow herd. Catriona gave several presentations, outlining how BREEDPLAN EBVs and Selection Indexes can be utilised to select for maternal cows and profitable steers. Catriona also provided a snapshot of the beef genetics research that is currently underway, and what producers may see in future BREEDPLAN analyses. Catriona then travelled to Namibia, where she gave several similar presentations at the Namibian Brahman Breeders Society (NBBS) Symposium and National Sale.
While overseas, Catriona also took the opportunity to provide BREEDPLAN workshops for ABRI’s Namibian and South African breed society clients. These were held at Bloemfontein, South Africa and Windhoek, Namibia, and gave breed society staff the opportunity to further their knowledge of BREEDPLAN and discuss any questions that they had.
The trip provided a great opportunity to liaise in-person with ABRI’s Southern African clients and learn more about the opportunities and challenges of the Southern African beef industry,” Catriona says. “I particularly enjoyed attending the LRF Stockman School Awards night, where a number of BREEDPLAN members were recognised for their contributions to beef breeding.”
Catriona would like to thank the LRF, NBBS and Namibian Stud Breeders Association (NSBA) and their staff for the invitation to present at these events and the support provided while she was in Africa.
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