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The draft version of the Strategic Plan 2008-2012, to be presented in Niagara Falls Session is available here

ICAR Strategic Plan for 2004-2008

A. INTRODUCTION

1. The ICAR Strategic Plan approved by the General Assembly in 2000 defined that the mission of the ICAR was ”to provide benefits to recording and evaluating member organisations”. It also contains provisions regarding the adoption of the ICAR new structure, types of membership, the structure of membership fees and priority activities. The Plan proved to be a useful instrument in short term planning of activities of ICAR technical and governing bodies. Attachment 1 to this document contains information on the implementation of the Plan in the period 2000 - 2004.
    

2. In 2003, the ICAR Board, on the basis of experience in implementing the 2000 Strategic Plan, undertook an environmental and needs analysis in order to identify necessary changes and corrections in the strategic orientation of ICAR. The analysis facilitated the production of the Draft of the ICAR Strategic Plan 2004-2008 for the submission to the General Assembly in Sousse for the approval. The proposed document should, like the previous one, serve as a guideline for the ICAR governing and technical bodies (Board, Executive Board, Sub-Committees, Working Groups and Task Force) to develop their short-term work plans and programmes.

B. CHANGING ENVIRONMENT AND NEW TASKS OF ICAR

3. ICAR has earned a world-wide reputation and recognition as unique international organisation in the field of animal recording and evaluation whose guidelines and standards are used both by its Member Organisations (MO), numerous national and local associations and by governmental national and international bodies as a reference or as a part of legislation.
    

4. ICAR was created many years ago and for decades was working for a very homogenous body of organisations. At that time, majority of recording and evaluation organisations were state owned and completely or partially financed by the state.
    

5. Today many organisations are acting and are structured in different ways: many are owned by farmers, many operate in competitive market conditions, some still receive financial support from the state. In addition, in many countries, namely in a number of emerging ones, recording and genetic improvement is considered as a public good and is run and funded by the state.
    

6. However, ICAR's structure and type of services did not fully evolve in accordance with these changes.
    

7. As a world-wide organisation for animal recording and evaluation, ICAR must be prepared for giving variety of services to its members in accordance with their needs. The basic strategic orientation must be towards further improvements in quality and volume of traditional services related to individual animal recording and evaluation as well as towards diversification of activities in accordance with needs of Member Organisations.

C. FUTURE ORIENTATION

8. The basic strategic orientation will be towards further improvements in quality and volume of traditional services related to individual animal recording and evaluation as well as towards diversification of activities in accordance with needs of Member Organisations.

9. The future priority actions of ICAR are:

   1. Facilitate the improvements in quality of recording and evaluation services, including the professional quality assurance;

   2. Further development and improvements in INTERBULL services

   3. Benchmarking;

   4. Improvements in the exchange of information between ICAR and Member Organisations and among ICAR MO;

   5. Extending individual animal recording and genetic evaluation to more traits, breeds and, where possible, more species;

   6. Facilitate the establishment and strengthening of recording systems in developing countries;

   7. Advice and assistance to interested MO in restructuring, innovating and diversifying their activities;

   8. Further improvements in the management of the ICAR resources;

   9. Examination and possible revision of ICAR membership.

D. QUALITY OF SERVICES

10. ICAR technical bodies will continue to ensure the development of ICAR guidelines, norms and rules, and to monitor the implementation of such.

11. They should also monitor the functioning of the existing and promote the establishment of new functional quality assurance systems in Member Organisations.

12. Respective ICAR Working Groups will undertake the following priority actions:

    1. Developing and publishing guidelines on fertility and health recording;

    2. Developing and publishing guidelines on data quality standards;

    3. Developing and publishing guidelines on PC software testing.

13. Use of the ICAR Special Stamp in publications and on documents issued by the members indicates that the records and evaluations have been produced by methods conforming with the ICAR agreement. The Rules for the Granting and for the Use of the Special Stamp provide for the supervision of the use of the Stamp by a special Commission of two Board Members. As this type of supervision proved to be inefficient, the ICAR Board will prepare proposal for changes in the Rules so as to introduce more efficient and professional control.

E. INTERBULL

14. INTERBULL Steering Committee will continue to ensure high quality of evaluation services, to facilitate exchange of information and to support research in field of genetic evaluation.

15. It will contribute to the introduction of genetic evaluation of new breeds and traits.

16. INTERBULL Steering Committee will undertake an environmental analysis so as to ascertain changes in the structure and functioning of service organisations in cattle sector affecting programmes and orientation of INTERBULL.

F. BENCHMARKING

17. ICAR will establish a benchmarking system for interested MO with a view to helping them to identify the efficiency level for each of the performed activities. The efficiency of operations is gaining importance in view of the increasing national and international competitiveness.

G. EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION

18. In order to implement its basic task and mission, ICAR will improve the exchange of information among its MO and between ICAR bodies and MO. The following measures are expected to contribute to the improvements in this field:

    1. Increase in quality and reliability of annual surveys on milk and beef recording in MO;

    2. Distribution of the electronic form of the ICAR Newsletter by email to a larger number of local and national organisations interested in ICAR;

    3. Changes in the organisation of biennial sessions including special workshops with topics of particular interest, the first ones being organised on fertility problems and manufacturers’ session at the Sousse biennial session;

    4. Special technical workshops on the occasion of sessions of the General Assembly in odd years.

H. NEW SPECIES, BREEDS, TRAITS AND COUNTRIES

H.1 New species

19. Where possible, ICAR will assist MO in identifying business opportunities and commercial interests in initiating recording of specific traits of new species by arranging for:

    1. a) Exchange of information;

    2. b) Organisation of specific workshops;

    3. c) Publication;

    4. d) Development of guidelines and standards.

20. These activities will be funded by interested MO, donors and the ICAR regular budget, subject to the decision of the General Assembly. The past experience from the buffalo milk recording will be used as a reference.

H.2 New traits

21. INTERBULL Steering Committee and interested MO will be encouraged to find the most appropriate solution for the genetic evaluation of beef cattle.

H.3 Facilitation of needs of developing countries

22. ICAR will facilitate the evolution of programs in developing countries by communicating business and market opportunities to MO's and manufacturers.

23. ICAR and its Member Organisations and manufacturers of production equipment and identification and recording devices can offer technical assistance and expertise in a variety of fields, such as:

    1. capacity building, including the establishment of recording organisations, farmers and breeders associations and support services;

    2. organisation of training courses for technicians from developing countries;

    3. development of recording technologies for lower to medium input production systems; in this respect, Sub-Committee Meters and Jars will develop guidelines and standards for testing and approval of scales for milk recording;

    4. establishment of animal identification and registration systems, particularly in exporting countries so as to facilitate export, traceability of products, food safety and protection of animal health;

    5. support of work on genetic evaluation and improvement of local breeds.

24. To reach this goal ICAR will continue to seek co-operation from international organisations and national or international projects in order to attain these objectives.

I. ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE TO INTERESTED MEMBER ORGANISATIONS IN DIVERSIFYING THEIR ACTIVITIES

25. In order to be in a position to act in accordance with its mission, ICAR should monitor developments and changes in environment in which its Member Organisations operate as well as evolutions in their structure and types of activities. These may include:

1. identification of drives for testing and recording (e.g. somatic cell count, quality of product);

2. financial interest and benefits of farmers;

3. responses and interests of manufacturers.

26. The maintenance of farm systems and farm auditing is gaining importance in a number of countries, and many MO have already embarked on providing to farmers a range of services above individual animal recording and evaluation.

27. The same goes for environmental impact, animal welfare, food safety and quality of products.

28. New technologies, such as automatic milking, daily milk recording, on-line milk analysers, on farm data processing and others, use of DNA techniques, etc. will require new set of guidelines, rules and standards. For this reason the ICAR working bodies must be abreast of technology developments and implications for each specific field of ICAR technical competence and mandate and must develop their own strategic documents covering basic orientation for the future.

29. These themes will be placed on the agenda of the future biennial sessions so as to ensure exchange of experience and evaluation of results so far attained. This will also require study of measurable parameters and development of standards and guidelines for recording of such.

J. MANAGEMENT AND FUNDING OF ICAR ACTIVITIES

30. Membership fees will be used to finance the basic activities of ICAR:

    1. preparation, updating and publication of guidelines, rules and standards;

    2. meetings of ICAR governing bodies;

    3. publications and web site;

    4. protection of names and logos;

    5. ICAR Secretariat.

31. All other activities and services must be self-sustainable and will be financed from income derived from users of these services or from donors. This includes:

    1. Genetic evaluation;

    2. Testing and approval of identification devices,

    3. Testing and approval of recording devices,

    4. Laboratory tests for calibration and accuracy checking

    5. Benchmarking services

    6. Software tests and approvals

    7. Data and service quality tests

    8. Organisation of specific seminars, workshop and training courses

    9. Publication of specific technical papers, as appropriate

32. New activities, such as initial work in recording and evaluation of new traits and new species and support of developing countries, will be financed by interested Member Organisations and/or donors.

33. New activities, particularly those in line with this document and those assisting MO to improve and develop their operations, may be financed from the regular budget of ICAR subject to the decision by the ICAR Board within the level of the budget approved by the General Assembly.

K. SERVICE ICAR

34. SERVICE-ICAR S.r.l. was established as a limited liability company owned 100% by ICAR whose task is to carry out contracts for testing of identification and recording devices with other organisations, as well to undertake other related activities which can not be undertaken by ICAR as a non-profit organisation. Board of SERVICE-ICAR S.r.l. is the Executive Board of ICAR.

35. The procedure for testing of device and for any other operation within the ICAR mandate will include:

    1. receipt of the request for testing from the manufacturer or interested organisation;

    2. funds to cover costs of testing are paid by the manufacturer to SERVICE-ICAR S.r.l.;

    3. selection of the Test Centre by the competent ICAR Sub-Committee;

    4. signature of the contract between SERVICE-ICAR S.r.l. and the test centre;

    5. delivery of results by the test centre to SERVICE-ICAR S.r.l. and their transfer to the Sub-Committee;

    6. payment of services to the test centre by SERVICE-ICAR S.r.l.

L. MEMBERSHIP OF ICAR

36. The full membership will be granted, subject to Board approval, to the world breed associations and to interested local and regional recording and herd improvement associations in member countries, which demonstrate to the satisfaction of the ICAR Board that they are of substance and are able to provide recording and/or evaluation services to ICAR standards.

37. The ICAR Board will examine the opportunity and applicability of the statutory principle “one country – one full member” in the light of changes in the structure of recording and evaluation activities in the world. It will submit its views to the next session of the General Assembly.

38. Associate membership will be opened to manufacturers and AI organisations, which agree to be bound by the ICAR Statutes.

39. The ICAR Board will prepare by-laws regarding the avoidance of conflict of interest of MO participating in the ICAR governing and working bodies.

40. It will also prepare proposals for the new structure of membership fees and establish the procedure for the avoidance of conflicts between MO from the same country.

41. In electing members of the ICAR Board, Member Organisations will take into account the need for the equitable geographic distribution of offices.

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