ABSc Dairy Research Funded
This past July at the Dairy Farmers of Canada (DFC) Annual Meeting in Saskatoon, the Minister of Agriculture and Agri-Food, the Honourable Marie-Claude Bibeau, announced an $11.4 million investment in Canadian dairy research. The Dairy Research Cluster 3 (DRC3) builds upon DRC1 and DRC2 that ran from 2010-2018 to stimulate productivity, sustainability, and profitability on farms, and to improve knowledge of the health benefits of milk and dairy products consumption.
A total of fifteen projects were funded and cover a variety of research priorities including dairy farm efficiency and sustainability, cow health and welfare, milk quality, and the health benefits of dairy products consumption. Three projects are being led by members of ABSc under the theme of Dairy Farm, Efficiency and Sustainability :
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROJECT: Understanding the impact of cutting-edge genomic technologies on breeding strategies for optimum genetic progress in Canadian dairy cattle
This project will analyze and compare the benefits of novel tools (e.g. gene editing) and new technologies (e.g. genotyping by sequencing) with the aim to optimize Canadian dairy cattle breeding programs for future genetic improvement and profitability.
PARTNERS: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Lactanet
RESEARCH TEAM: Christine Baes, University of Guelph
Flavio Schenkel, Getu Hailu, Angela Canovas (University of Guelph)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROJECT: Accelerating genetic gain for novel traits in Canadian Holstein cows
This project aims to increase the size of the cow reference population to improve the accuracy and reliability of genomic estimated breeding values (EBVs) for novel traits and develop tools to increase the rate of genetic progress for Canadian Holstein cows.
PARTNERS: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Lactanet
RESEARCH TEAM: Flavio Schenkel, University of Guelph
Christine Baes, Angela Canovas, Janusz Jamrozik, Stephen LeBlanc, Filippo Miglior, Eduardo Ribeiro (University of Guelph), Xin Zhao (McGill University), Ronaldo Cerri (University of British Columbia)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PROJECT: Optimizing health and production of cows milked in robotic systems
This project aims to identify the optimal nutritional and housing strategies for cows milked automatically to improve cow health, milk production and efficiency of robot use
PARTNERS: Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada Dairy Farmers of Canada Lactanet (In-kind contribution)
RESEARCH TEAM: Trevor DeVries, University of Guelph
Greg Penner, Tim Mutsvangwa (University of Saskatchewan), Karin Orsel, Ed Pajor (University of Calgary), Todd Duffield (University of Guelph), Richard Cantin, Débora Santschi, René Lacroix (Lactanet)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
More information on DRC3 and Canadian dairy research can be found at https://www.dairyresearch.ca/