The 2025 British Cattle Breeders Conference will address how cattle breeding can meet the rising demands of food production whilst simultaneously reducing the impact of methane emissions. Well-respected farmers and academia will come together at the event in Telford next January to debate the hot topic. BCBC Chairman Andy King, who chose this year’s theme ‘The Herd of the Future,’ says cattle br...

It is a great honour and privilege to have been elected chairman of the British Cattle Breeder’s Club for 2024-25. The year ahead is built on the outstanding and hugely successful conference that took place in January under the chairmanship of Ben Harman and the immensely hard-working and talented committee. I experience a mixture of ‘excitement’ and ‘apprehension’ as we navigate the conference p...

Belfast, 10th April - The British Society of Animal Science (BSAS) and the British Cattle Breeders Club (BCBC) proudly announce Dr. Tianhai Yan as the recipient of the prestigious 2024 Sir John Hammond Award. This esteemed award recognizes individuals who have made exceptional contributions to animal science through research, teaching, knowledge exchange, breeding, farming, industry, or affiliated...

Government policy should reward outcomes, not breed, and farmers must harness the power of data to improve efficiencies and lower farm emissions. These were two key messages from British Limousin Society Chief Executive Alice Swift at the British Cattle Breeders Club Conference in January. With over 60% of UK land unsuitable for growing crops she emphasised the important role suckler cows playe...

It was with great pleasure that the British Cattle Breeders Club welcomed Holstein UK’s President Andrew Jones to present Mary Mead of the Lakemead Prefix with Holstein UK’s Lifetime Achievement Award during the annual conference dinner in January, at Telford. Mary and her husband Roger started farming in 1961 in the Yeo Valley where they formed the Lakemead herd of British Friesians.  A closed h...

Brongain Farms are using data to pinpoint areas for improvement in its quest to become carbon neutral by 2030. Father and son Rowan and Greg Pickstock, who are also beef processors, farm 350ha in Llanfechain. They are targeting a daily liveweight gain of 1.1kg to produce net zero beef from grass. Currently, dairy-beef animals are finished at 650kg aged 22.5 months, and are on grass for 270 days...

To meet the UK’s legislative goals for net zero, as measured using the UK National Inventory, the farming industry needs to urgently move with a great pace on measuring, monitoring, and reducing gross farm emissions, warned a leading agricultural professor. Speaking at the British Cattle Breeder’s Conference on 24 January, Professor Elizabeth Magowan, Director of Sustainable Agri-Food Sciences Di...

Dairy farmer Rory Christie from Dourie Farming Ltd in South-West Scotland has helped create the first crossbreeding index as part of the Fast Breeders Project, led by geneticist Mike Coffey from SRUC. The project involves three other spring calving grazing herds milking a total of 4,250 cows. Mr Christie says during the inception of the project they had the ‘very audacious goal’ to increase inco...

Aberdeenshire suckler farmer Duncan Morrison said running a simple, low-cost grass-based system has helped him build a ‘lean and mean’ business. Since taking on a 226-acre tenancy in 2016, Mr Morrison and his wife Claire have grown their business to 650 acres and will bull 250 spring-calving cows and heifers this spring – a mix of Aberdeen-Angus and Stabilisers. He advocated for farmers to becom...

Red meat and dairy are vital for human health and more must be done to challenge publications that advocate dramatic reductions or total exclusions of animal-sourced foods from human diets. This was the message from Professor Alice Stanton, from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland, who warned that many publications calling for this are not rigorously peer-reviewed or transparently evidence-b...