Welcome to Beef Beyond Borders!

Attendees of the 2008 Beef Beyond Borders - Beef Improvement Foundation Conference enjoyed a welcome reception this evening sponsored by the Canadian Cattlemen's Association at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Calgary. After hors d'oeuvres and cocktails, Herb McLane and Don MacKenzie of the Canadian Beef Breeds Council and Lora Rose of BIF welcomed the group.

Getting down to business, National Beef Cattle Evaluation Consortium Executive Director John Pollak, PhD, from Cornell University (also named a BEEF magazine "Top 40" most influential person in the industry) opened the presentations with an overview of the current trends in beef cattle improvement. With the rapid pace of DNA evaluation technology development, he said now is the time to begin transitioning toward the next generation of selection tools. Possibilities to consider include:

• "molecular breeding values" based on DNA data
• incorporation of DNA data into EPD calculations
• a centralized database for genetic information
• multi-breed evaluation
• research collaboration
• optimizing exploration

Pollak's take-home message was that as an industry we need to "optimize selection decisions based on the information in hand at the time the decision is made."