Sustainability Task Force
Composition
| Tone Roalkvam (Chair) – Specialist Advisor Sustainability at Tine S, ICAR Board Member | Norway |
| Beat Bapst -Geneticist Qualitas AG also CEO Swiss Association for Animal Sciences, SAAS/SVT (part time position) | Switzerland |
| Martin Burke (Secretary) | CE ICAR (Secretary) |
| Ben Bartlett – NMR Group Business Development Manager and Director | UK |
| Fabian Bernal – Global Head of Sustainability DeLaval Group | Sweden |
| Christa Egger Danner – Chair ICAR Functional Traits Working Group | Austria |
| Robert Fourdraine – Asst Director, Dairy Record Management Systems | USA |
| Birgit Grendl-Gredler – Co-Chair ICAR ‘Feed and Gas’ Working Group | Holland |
| Stefan Hörtenhuber – University Assistant and Senior Researcher at Division of Livestock Sciences NUWI | Austria |
| Filippo Miglior – Senior Advisor, Genetics and Strategic Initiatives, Lactanet | Canada |
| Corina van Middelaar – Animal Production Systems group Wageningen University | Holland |
| Henrique Trindade – Professor, Department of Agronomy – School of Agriculture & Veterinary Sciences UTAD | Portugal |
Documents
Programme of action
The Sustainability is planning to focus its ambitious action in the following aspects of the cow data recording
Production
- Rolling Herd Average Energy Corrected Milk (i.e. milk, fat and protein)
- Age at first calving (calf and heifer raising)
- Annual average Days in Milk (long days in milk are typically not very good economically)
- MUN rates (High MUN rates points at overfeeding energy (protein) more N in manure)
Reproduction
- Pregnancy rate (Low pregnancy rates can indicate poor reproduction program)
- Pregnancy Loss Rate (High loss rates can point at various management factor, health, environment, etc.)
- Days Open (Long days open are not desirable)
Health
- Weighted Somatic Cell Count (high SCC can point at Udder health problems)
- Fresh Cow Infection Rate (Indicated either poor dry cow management of heifer management)
- % Chronic infection rate (Cows with Mastitis)
Transition
- Dry Cow Cure Rate (Poor cure rates points at poor dry cow program)
- % Cows died less then 60 days in milk (Poor fresh cow program)
- Fresh cow Fat Protein Ratio andequivalent milk BHB (both traits are very helpful indicators together of transition status, ketosis etc.)
Turnover
- % Calves born alive
- % Cows removed for non-dairy reason
- % Cows Died
- % Cows in Lactation 3 & greater
Genetics
- Cow NM$ (In US NM$ is used to measure genetic progress, Higher NM$ cows would point at genetically superior animals)
- Sire NM$
- any genetic/genomic index (NM$, TPI, LPI, Pro$, or other national indexes worldwide) for all animals in herd including new born (based on GPA)
Efficiency
- Using milk MIR predictions of Methane Emissions and Energy Balance, DMI, etc (EB is also of course part of Transition)
Welfare
- Any indicator of welfare (lameness, hoof health, others)
