Safeguarding the genetic value of animals

The genetic value of an individual animal is something that is hard to evaluate since, in general, there are no objective parameters to use in making an estimation. The difficulties in making an evaluation are highlighted whenever the economic value of an entire herd needs to be expressed (evaluation of livestock for farm balance sheets, or for an assessment of economic compensation following forced culling).

In Italy, as in all the countries in the European Community for that matter, the troubled health situation in recent times has created great difficulties for farmers who have had to destroy entire herds, the fruit of a lengthy, constant, and expensive selection process. In exchange, they have only been reimbursed on a limited scale, calculated on the basis of the average market value of an ordinary cow, and thus not sufficient to reconstruct the original herd.

Anafi is well aware of the fact that the animals registered in the Herd Book have a value which is certainly higher than the rest of the dairy cattle population which is not part of the national selection plan, and also that, at the current time, there is no system for reimbursing farmers with the real genetic value of any losses in the event of obligatory culling. For these reasons, it has brought in a service for farmers which, on the basis of objective and official market values, enables to put a price on the genetic value of the individual animals present in the herd, independently of age.

The program combines and processes all the economic values of the animals registered in the Herd Book which are available within the borders of Italy, and especially takes into consideration four main values:

• the average market value, recorded in the main markets, of cows at the slaughter-house;
• the average price at sale of registered bred cows, as provided by farmers’ co-operatives. This price is already used as the basis for calculating the figure for reimbursement by the Italian State for animals destroyed as a result of epizootic diseases;

• the average daily cost of maintenance;
• the market value of young bulls which are included in progeny test programs and later used in AI whose mothers belong to the top 1% of the population (rank 99).

The aim of the program is to assign an economic value to each rank point.

Calculating the difference between rank 50 (average score of commercial cows), and rank 99 (ME value of a seven months pregnant cow suitable to be a bull dam), a value is assigned to each rank point: for animals with a breeding value, this is currently 110,000 Lit., while for animals with a pedigree index, the genetic value has been assessed, on the basis of probability, to be equivalent to 33% of the genetic value, or 36,600 Lit.

The validity and the objectivity of the program has enabled Anafi to draw up a convention with an insurance company, "La Navale Assicurazione" which, via "GeA Gestioni e Assicurazioni", will be able to guarantee the genetic value of the animals registered with the Herd Book.

The guarantees which form the subject of the agreement relate to the national plans to eradicate Tubercolosis, Brucellosis, Bovine Leucosis, Foot-and-mouth disease, Contagious Exudative Pleuro-Pneumonia, and Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE).

Breeders belonging to the national selection plan, via the relevant Provincial Breeders’ Associations, are signing up to this service in large numbers, aware both of the fact that the dangers of infection of animals are increasing (especially owing to the cancellation of vaccination plans), and of the fact that compensation paid by the State Agencies would definitely not enable the reconstruction of a herd with the same genetic and productive value as that which may need to be destroyed.