INTERBULL Summary

Role

The International Bull Evaluation Service (Interbull) is a sub-committee of the International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR) and, as a non-profit organisation, responsible for promoting the development and execution of international genetic evaluations for cattle.
It achieves this through co-ordinating international communication and research efforts, and providing a number of services to participating countries through the activities of the Interbull Centre in Uppsala, Sweden.

History

Interbull was developed in 1983 as a joint venture between ICAR, the European Association for Animal Production (EAAP) and the International Dairy Federation (IDF). At this time, increasing trade in semen, embryos and livestock had led naturally towards breeders wanting to make accurate comparisons between animals, primarily bulls, performing both within and across countries. However, these comparisons were made difficult by :

• differences in genetic evaluation methods;
• differences in breeding objectives;
• differences in genetic levels;
• differences in farming environment.

Since then, the international exchange of information provided by Interbull has helped member countries to develop more effective methods for genetic evaluation of cattle.

Interbull became a permanent sub-committee of ICAR in 1988, supported by its parent organisations EAAP and IDF, and also the FAO. Following a call for tender the Interbull Centre was established in 1991 under contract with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in Uppsala, Sweden, and with financial support from the Swedish Farmers’ union, the dairy industry and the Swedish Agricultural Board.

The first international evaluation took place in August 1994 and included milk production data from the Nordic countries for the Holstein and Ayrshire breed groups. Half a year later the second Interbull evaluations was conducted including milk production data from nine countries.

In 1996 the European Union (EU) appointed the Interbull Centre as the community reference body for bovine evaluations.

Structure

Interbull is managed by an ICAR appointed Steering Committee, consisting of 9 members from different countries. The objectives for the Steering Committee are to set strategy, priorities, work plans and budget for Interbull.

Since 2003 the SC is supported by two expert groups: the Scientific Advisory Committee (SAC) and the Interbull Technical Committee (ITC). The objective of the SAC is to propose methodological developments that are needed to ensure the strategic direction, scientific soundness, and long-term progress of the Interbull services. The objective of the ITC is to identify and review technical issues that may be essential for providing a high quality service to countries participating in the international genetic evaluations.

Interbull Business Meetings are held regularly (once per year) with the purpose to report on the activities of the Interbull Centre, present decisions of the Steering Committee including budget, and to provide member organizations with a forum for discussion of Interbull services, present and desired. Conclusions and recommendations of the Interbull Business Meeting are brought to the Steering Committee for decision.

Interbull Centre is the operational unit of Interbull. The Interbull Centre provides a number of user-paid services to member countries. In 2007, Interbull had 42 member countries and more countries are likely to join in the future.

In 1999 Interbull finalised an agreement with a North American Consortium consisting of Holstein Association USA, National Association of Animal Breeders, Holstein Canada and Canadian Dairy Network to subcontract part of the computations for the international genetic evaluation for conformation traits.

Benefits

Interbull currently provides four major benefits to its member countries:

1. International Communication
   A major benefit of Interbull membership is the exchange of information with other member countries. Interbull co-ordinates this international communication through the use of meetings, workshops, surveys, presentations, publications and its Internet site www.interbull.org. Interbull annually organizes an international seminar for exchange of research results and experiences among industry representatives and scientists in the area of genetic evaluation of dairy cattle. Proceedings of these meetings are published in the Interbull Bulletin series.
    
2.  International Research & Development
   The Interbull Centre provides international leadership in researching and developing methods for generating international genetic evaluations. It achieves this through co-ordinating and reviewing research done in member countries, as well as running it’s own research program.
    
3.  International Genetic Evaluation Service
   The International Genetic Evaluation Service provided by the Interbull Centre calculates international genetic evaluations for most of the economically important traits in dairy cattle. Over 25 countries currently subscribe to this service.
    
4. International Technical Support
   Interbull provides member countries with advice and assistance on all matters relating to the genetic evaluation of cattle. This includes guidance for countries developing joint evaluation or recording schemes, and recommended codes of practice for national evaluation systems.

Through the benefits of combining research and information from around the world, Interbull contributes to greater genetic progress for all its member countries.

Participating countries receive the benefits of Interbull through payment of annual membership fees. Additional service fees are charged by the Interbull Centre for countries subscribing to the International Genetic Evaluation Service.

International Genetic Evaluation Service

International Genetic Evaluations are across-country measures of genetic merit of dairy for individual traits. In 2007, the International
Genetic Evaluation Service provided by Interbull evaluates sires of 6 breeds and 6 trait groups (milk production, udder health, conformation, longevity, calving and female fertility traits). Other traits will be included in the future.

Interbull uses a scientifically advanced method known as Multiple Across Country Evaluation (MACE) to calculate International Genetic Evaluations. MACE has two major advantages over other methods:
 

1. Use of all known relationships between animals
   MACE combines information from each country using all known relationships between animals, both within and across populations.
   
   
2. Genotype by environment interactions
   MACE accounts for the possibility of animals re-ranking between certain countries. This occurs when animals perform better in certain environments than they do in others or when genetic evaluation methods differ between countries. For this reason, a separate set of results is calculated for every participating country. This process is demonstrated in the figure demonstrated in the figure below:

This figure shows that the International Genetic Evaluations calculated for sires from countries A and B (and their subsequent ranking’s) can be different from one country to the next.

A separate list of International Genetic Evaluations for all traits and sires evaluated is provided to each member country, expressed in their own units and relative to their own base group of animals.

This provides the advantage of individual countries being able to identify those animals from around the world that will perform best under their own unique farming conditions.

Currently, results are made available to member countries four times per year (February, May, August, and November) and involves/comprises more than 140,000 bulls of six breed groups.

Please Note. Interbull does not rank animals in any way and only calculates breeding values on the different country scales. Member countries are responsible for ranking sires using their own breeding objectives, and publishing the results.

The Future

Interbull will continue to provide a world focus for communication and research on international genetic evaluations for dairy and beef cattle.

In response to global developments in cattle breeding, Interbull continues to develop international genetic evaluations for emerging traits of economic importance.

As the increase in number of member countries has levelled off, Interbull will be placing greater emphasis on improving the quality of the international evaluation service and improve procedures to suit the wide range of traits included in the service portfolio.

In 2007 a three-year project to develop a system for international genetic evaluation of beef cattle started as a collaboration between ICAR, INRA (France), ICBF (Ireland) and the Interbull Centre.