Intelligent Breeding - We Owe It to the Next Generation
For me, it was the greatest of honours to be elected Chairman of the Club for 2011. As the first female Chairman for 30 years the pressure was definitely on!
As we enter a period of huge population growth and great world demand for our agricultural products my belief is that we need to focus on our future and in breeding terms that's our next generation. So the theme for the January 2011 British Cattle Breeders Conference was Intelligent Breeding - We Owe It to the Next Generation.
The most important question I have been asking myself as Chairman was - did we get it right and get the message across to the enthusiastic audience who attended? Well, it wasn't through lack of enthusiasm from the committee or the audience if we didn't!
The Committee brought together an exceptional set of world class speakers, including four Nuffield Scholars and a host of international guest speakers to deliver Conference papers to challenge us all with topics that were relevant and of immediate benefit to anyone within the world cattle breeding sector.
Our evening panel session also saw the high profile attendance of Defra Director General, Katrina Williams, the Chief Veterinary Officer for the Welsh Assembly, Christianne Glossop and the flamboyant Justin McCarthy from the Irish Farmers Journal. We are very grateful to these individuals for giving up their time to be with us and really setting our Club Dinner evening alight.
The conference also hosted its first industry awards presentation with Bernard Liddle, President of Holstein UK presenting the 'Presidents Medal' to a worthy winner in Craig Brough from Cumbria.
The awards were accompanied by a glass or two of bubbly for everyone and underlined the importance that youth has within our breeding industry. Another new part of the conference was the first Student Essay Competition and the two winning essays can be enjoyed within this Digest.
As the youngest-ever Club Chairman (which is in itself both humbling and nerve racking) I felt it was my duty to encourage every one who attended to engage with our next generation of breeders.
We need to inspire and support them to take on the new cattle breeding challenges or quite frankly, what are we all doing this for? Although this particular conference may not have been as focused on science as some previous programmes have been, it is my belief that we needed to take the opportunity to embrace and inspire our next generation of breeders or we won't have a conference to speak at in the future. So I hope you can join me and support the British Cattle Breeders' Club in inspiring our future generation of farmers as they take on the challenges and the legacy we leave to them.
Genomics, reduced generation interval, improved genetic evaluations, international collaboration, these will all play a part but I strongly believe that above all this, the fundamental benchmark of this Club and our industry is to focus on 'Intelligent breeding', as we most certainly owe this to the next generation!
It was a privilege to work with such a wonderfully supportive and creative committee and I would like to offer special thanks to our Secretary Lesley Lewin who is the most unbelievably organised and enthusiastic person I have ever met! I hope you enjoy the Digest and please come and join us again next January at the superb facilities offered at the Telford Golf and Spa Hotel for this vibrant, informative and challenging Conference under the guidance of your new Chairman Mr Duncan Sinclair. As 2010's Chairman and my dear friend Rob Wills said last year: don't forget, spread the word!
Lucy Andrews