president
MIKE BUCHANAN
THE 2020 SCORE CARD HOW ARE WE GOING? Dear Members, in the Australian Wagyu world, from an AWA Board perspective.
GENETIC DIVERSITY MANAGEMENT: PREFECTURAL SCIENCE ADOPTED
This piece is in part a scorecard for the first half of 2020. How do
Another important project commenced last November was
you think we are performing?
unveiled as ‘now operational’ at another AWA webinar in early
It’s again my pleasure to offer you a short review of progress
MEMBER SERVICE PERFORMANCE
July. The objective was the first-time measurement of genetic diversity in the Australian Japanese Black Herdbook. This then
With our annual conference cancelled due to COVID-19,
enables planning to manage diversity, which has been recognised
our planned Member briefing on AWA member services and
as challenged. One new enabling tool is the database integration of
competitive breed society performance went online in June in a
Japanese prefectural values (individual percentage content) for all
members-only Zoom webinar. This delivered the outcomes from
individual registered Black Fullbloods.
a first-ever business review that was conducted from November 2019 through to February 2020. We measured AWA against ‘the rest’, and identified ‘blips and dips’ over a seven year period. This outcome is a showcase for the diligent efforts of CEO Dr Matt McDonagh and his team, most prominently in turning around a negative MIPs-to-SNPs implementation scenario. The lesson in project planning was clear. The difficulties created for members in that period are fully recognised. The obstacles have been identified and redressed.
In doing this, we deliberately adopted the unique, differentiated structure of Japanese Black breed population science, as used in Japanese scientific literature for more than 40 years. Adoption of the prefectural population structure was enabled by the efforts of external consultant Mr Tak Suzuki and AWA Technical Services Manager Carel Teseling, who first created a foundation by resolving numerous deficiencies in the AWA pedigree database, substantially enhancing linkages back to Japanese herd ancestors. Great implementation assistance was
In both competitive member costs and service delivery, AWA is today
also received from ABRI.
a clear leader among Australian breed societies. We will continue
The implementation provides improvements in metrics, including
competitive benchmarking to ensure we retain this position.
the potential for inbreeding measurement right back into the
NEW BREEDER INDEX
Japan Registry Herdbook.
The inexpensive webinar format was again used a fortnight
Now, for the first time, the AWA Herdbook database provides a
later when we introduced the fourth Wagyu profitability Index, named the ‘Wagyu Breeder Index’, which again originates in our November 2019 meetings. The purpose and functionality of this important addition to our suite of BreedObject $Indexes is well described elsewhere. It is a powerful new tool for breeders in low-input Australian pastoral conditions and is ideal for use in overall herd development in these production systems.
WWW.WAGYU.ORG.AU > WAGYU WEBINAR SERIES
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THE AUSTRALIAN WAGYU UPDATE - ISSUE 75
‘single narrative’ for the international Japanese Black herd, from the latest animal registrations from members around the world, back to Japanese pedigrees and individual prefectural herd origins. ‘Real Wagyu’, without a doubt. Accurate pedigrees back to our founder ancestral genetics ensure delivery of a stable, consistent source for prefectural analysis that has been used by many breeders since original exports from Japan. This implementation is a strongly affirmative response from AWA to consistent requests from AWA members in recent years, captured in formal surveys in 2014 and 2017. The major benefit is yet to come, as our key scientific partner,
