Dear breeders, technicians, visitors and participants all I bring you the greetings of ANAFIBJ and I thank you for your participation in this important multi-event, i.e. the 69th edition of the national show of the Italian Friesian breed, the 10th edition of the national show of the Italian Jersey breed. , as well as the 9th edition of the Open Junior Show reserved for young European breeders from various European Union countries.
The Montichiari Exhibition Center has prepared with a completely new environment, with a specific safetybusinnes protocol with the most up-to-date systems in the field of prevention against COVID-19 and some precautions designed to improve and ensure maximum comfort for animals compared to the past, as well as with actual improvements in the structures intended to house the technical-operational staff. Montichiari will be the worthy location to represent a zootechnical company that increasingly looks to research, innovation and insights in the field of animal selection. We remind you that in Montichiari the National Friesian and Jersey Breed Exhibitions are the only Herd Book Exhibitions, for these two specialized dairy breeds, and have, in addition to a historical value, an institutional mandate from the Ministry of Agricultural Policies (MIPAAF), to be recognized as such.
The National Show has always been an important opportunity to highlight the strong technical commitment that characterizes our association, inserted in an important international zootechnical context where the Italian Friesian population represents the fourth population worldwide in terms of the number of animals registered in the Herd Book. official.
The selective results achieved by ANAFIBJ are the confirmation of a path of choices and strategies that have, over the years, paid off, supporting breeders in the selection of their herds with concrete and easily measurable results in terms of production, functionality and resilience.
From a technical point of view, numerous indices are available to breeders for the individual productive, morphological, health and functional characteristics, as well as three aggregate indices, such as the PFT (Production Functionality and Type), the IES (economic health index), the ICS index PR (sustainable cheese making index for milk destined for Parmigiano Reggiano). Let’s not forget that show-cases will be held at the ANAFIBJ stand in which the association’s technicians will present the most interesting services and news such as the WAM online mating plan, the Herd UP program, which allows breeders to be able to monitor the morphological progress. and genetic of the company by comparing it with the best farms at national / provincial level, as well as other services put in place by the association, to support our breeders in their activity and allow them to increase the company income, as well as respond to new requests from the society and consumers.
The innovations that will be presented will also concern new indices, already integrated in the LATTEco project, developed within the PSRN measure 10.2-milk sector, related to heat stress, precision farming with the automated milking index, environmental mitigation with emission of gas into the atmosphere, resistance to metabolic disorders (eg ketosis) and food efficiency.
Over the next three years, the MILK project will continue its work on issues such as livestock and environmental sustainability, animal welfare and the reduction of the use of drugs, issues that are very much felt by public opinion today.
ANAFIBJ is processing new information found in the farms that allow the creation of a database of phenotypes which, associated with the genomic analyzes envisaged in the project, lead to the creation of models for estimating the genetic value of the new traits being selected.
The results achieved with genomics confirm the importance of the agreement that ANAFIBJ signed, at the time, with the North American Consortium, which has translated into ever-increasing genetic trends and which demonstrate, unequivocally, how the Friesian breed is can define the dairy breed par excellence, both for the numbers of the population, which allow it to have an enormous heritage of “genetic diversity”, and because it is able to respond to all the improvement objectives that are required by the various production systems.
All this translates into the provision of high quality genomic reproducers to Italian breeders, capable of accelerating genetic progress and satisfying even the most ambitious selective needs.
Finally, I would like to extend a special thanks to the breeders who participate in this event, aware of the great commitment they have spent months in preparing their animals.