From the US to the world: How innovation travels in cattle breeding

Dr Sophie Eaglen, International Program Director, National Association of Animal Breeders (NAAB), USA

Bovine genetics are a global industry, with over $600 million worth of semen exported annually. North America and Europe dominate world exports, with the United States accounting for approximately 56%. This scale encourages the assumption that genetics are universal. After all, the dominant Holstein breed remains highly genetically correlated across developed regions. When it comes to innovation, however, adoption is local. What works domestically may not work globally. Experiences from innovations that transformed the US cattle breeding landscape show what has driven global success and what has struggled to get traction, and why.

How innovation drove global commercial success

Public trade data reveal a clear inflection point around 2010, after which US exports of bovine genetics surged to record levels (Figure 1.0). This spike coincided with the widespread adoption of genomic selection and the growing popularity of sexed semen.

By the end of the 2000s, genomic selection had transitioned from research into routine national evaluation. The first publicly available genomic evaluations were released by the USDA in 2009. Around the same time, sexed semen moved from research novelty to a practical tool. Although the concept had existed for years, improvements in sorting efficiency and conception rates allowed rapid adoption starting in 2010. Between 2009 and 2015, the use of female sexed semen on Holstein heifers in the United States increased from 9% to 31% (Hutchison and Bickhart, 2016).

The scientific foundations of genomic selection were developed through international collaboration. Yet its real impact depended on rapid incorporation into national evaluations and availability to farmers. Adoption succeeded when culture, economics, and risk tolerance aligned: breeding companies and US dairy producers were willing to act when even a small but reliable advantage was evident. Genomics provided confidence in selection, while sexed semen offered flexibility in herd management. Together, these innovations moved quickly from niche tools to mainstream practice.

From domestic adoption to global impact

The rapid domestic uptake of these innovations created a foundation for international expansion. As US farmers and breeding companies embraced genomic selection and sexed semen, the resulting improvements in genetic gain made US genetics increasingly attractive to global markets.

A second inflection point is visible in 2016, coinciding with the growing interest in genomic testing of commercial females. At this stage, US evaluations became accessible to foreign breeders, enabling wider understanding of the US evaluation system. Shared knowledge allowed genetics to spread globally, much like a language crossing borders. This process acted as a flywheel, generating self-reinforcing momentum that further stimulated commercial semen sales.

Not all innovations are new. Practices such as beef-on-dairy and heterospermic semen existed for decades but their recent success only occurred when economic, market and cultural conditions aligned. For many years, low-cost beef semen was used in US dairies to breed problem cows. Semen used was mostly from older bulls with excess inventory whose marketability had diminished in the beef market. Primary selection was for calving ease bulls.

While genomic selection and sexed semen rise between 2010 and 2015, a large drought takes the US pure beef breed population to an all-time low in 2013. Market signals flow from packers to producers and dairy producers quickly see opportunity to solve their issue of excess heifers by breeding low genomic quality females to beef while high females are bred to available sexed semen. The AI industry responds quickly and the inflection point in beef semen sales is visible in 2017 when growth appears to a product that was stable since 1977.

In response, sales of dairy semen drop with less heifers and reduced use of conventional semen. As packers demand a standardized product, breeding companies start selection lines for the purpose of beef on dairy. This led to a significant growth in available beef bulls as well as the growth of heterospermic semen sales. This product where semen of multiple beef bulls is mixed fit the terminal end product of beef-on-dairy well with its more affordable pricing and premise of increased fertility. Heterospermic semen sales showed a total of 2 million USD annual sales in 2024.

Why innovation can stall internationally

While domestic conventional semen sales dropped in the United States, they still dominate exports. And while beef semen sales spiked, exports of beef semen did not follow the same trend. Heterospermic semen is not exported at all.

Even when an innovation succeeds domestically, transferring it across borders is rarely straightforward. Experience from US exports demonstrates several key factors that determine whether innovation succeeds internationally:

• Regulatory environment: Supportive policy facilitates rather than restricts innovation
• Infrastructure and data systems: Traditional policies for export documentation can be amended to allow for innovative products to pass
• Cultural readiness: Farmers and advisors must be willing to experiment and adapt practices
• Economic incentive: Technology adoption must provide tangible benefits, even if incremental
• Critical mass of advocates: Peer-to-peer sharing and demonstration farms accelerate trust

Missing any one of these elements will slow or block adoption, regardless of scientific validity. Research and development bring a product to its market ready state but adoption of innovation is most often not reliant on scientific validity.

One can segment innovations and list the main factors these innovations are not yet adopted widely.

Table 1. Innovations segmented by main restricting factors limiting widespread adoption and current largest regions of resistance

Rules, protectionist pressures, and long-established breeding pipelines are often built for the systems of the past, not the farms of today. This means that quite often, innovations that can aid farmers in improving herd profitability may be slow or impossible to access. Safeguards matter, but when systems become too rigid, they can unintentionally hold back progress. This is the case for innovations such as heterospermic semen and beef crossbred semen for countries where policies are mainly set by and for breed associations. Traditional needs for deep pedigrees don’t allow the move towards heterospermic semen or semen from composite breeds with internal undisclosed breed compositions.

For other products, such as proprietary traits and indexes, there is a lack of critical mass that pushes the narrative. Genomic testing has allowed the adoption of proprietary traits offered by large global laboratories that offer the traits in addition to national evaluations. But proprietary traits of breeding companies or smaller exporting nations have struggled to grow out of the initial niche customer base due to the lack of a large salesforce offering the trait or the trait lacking the needed economic incentive to justify the additional cost or burden of switching advisors.

Risk of innovation that goes too fast or is too narrow

As countries such as the United States continue to accelerate the adoption of innovative breeding strategies at a pace that is not readily attainable in many other regions, there is a risk of widening the gap between genetic evaluation systems. Over time, national indices such as Net Merit may appear less applicable or less interpretable outside their domestic context, potentially weakening their international relevance and brand validity. The same challenge applies to regions that prioritize traits driven largely by national or societal goals, such as sustainability. When these traits lack clear on-farm relevance or market signals elsewhere, breeding strategies risk becoming harder to export. From a global perspective, innovation that is too narrowly tailored can lose traction just as easily as innovation that moves too fast. There is a current real risk that the larger exporters of cattle genetics move in different directions, thereby weakening international collaboration while adoption of innovation requires the opposite. This would eventually not be in the benefit of producers’ accessibility to innovative genetics and new breeding tools.

Conclusion: Innovation travels through people

Innovation in cattle breeding rarely fails because the science is wrong. It fails because it arrives in places where the conditions for use are not yet in place. The experience of the United States shows that innovation gains momentum when farmers, breeding companies, evaluation systems, and market signals move together. Genomic selection and sexed semen succeeded not simply because they worked, but because they were embedded quickly, communicated clearly, and applied by producers willing to take calculated risks when the economics aligned.

Once that momentum was established domestically, it became transferable. Export growth followed not only from genetic gain, but from a shared language and a critical mass of advocates. Genomic testing of commercial females extended this further, allowing breeders worldwide to interpret and apply US genetics within their own systems. Like a flywheel, early adoption created self-reinforcing momentum but only after local conditions were right. The contrast with beef-on-dairy, heterospermic semen, proprietary traits, and advanced reproductive technologies highlights a broader lesson. Proven tools can stall when regulatory frameworks, infrastructure, cultural readiness, or critical mass are missing. From a farmer’s perspective, this can be frustrating: solutions that work may be slow or impossible to access elsewhere, not because they lack merit, but because systems are not innovating alongside products.

As the global breeding industry looks ahead, success may depend less on inventing the next breakthrough. It will depend more on connecting the dots between innovation and application where the gap between academics, commercial industry and policy makers must get smaller to allow faster changes in a traditional conservative industry. It also means allowing room for adaptation and recognizing cultural differences, potentially starting at a very different point in the process per country of interest.

As global breeding goals increasingly incorporate traits with high social merit, such as sustainability, but uneven cultural or economic relevance, there is a risk that international alignment weakens rather than strengthens. If major exporting regions move in different directions, collaboration may fragment into regional blocks. For producers, this would be an undesirable outcome. Innovation delivers its greatest value when it remains translatable, comparable, and connected. Protecting that connection, scientifically, commercially, and regulatorily, may prove just as important as developing the next breakthrough.

The figures referred to in this paper can be found in the full Digest PDF, available to members in the Members area.