Future market and consumer-orientated breeding goals

Livestock breeding goals have to be orientated towards the future, firstly because breeding schemes can lead to substantial genetic changes and reduction in biodiversity over time, and secondly because there is a time lag between selection decisions and when the genetic changes from these decisions are utilized. Consequently, it is impossible to define appropriate breeding goals without an idea about future market and production circumstances. Since human needs and demands for animal products are expected to double during the next 30 years, production traits should be given first priority, but greater emphasis should be given to the utilization of resources, and environmental and welfare aspects of animal production. In dairy cattle breeding secondary traits such as health, longevity, persistency and calving performance are expected to be important in the future. The use of target breeding goals for a few secondary traits in combination with an aggregate economic goal for the primary traits seems a worthwhile consideration. It is suggested that the use of new reproduction technologies e.g. (transfer of sexed embryos) and strategies may change the primary goal from 305-day to 1000-day lactation records.