CALGARY – Dairy herd records are being turned over to a privately run organization.
Canadian Dairy Network is an industry run organization which will handle milk recording services and genetic evaluation records of animals across the country.
Located in Guelph, Ont., the network has written a business plan to ensure sufficient income to run the record keeping programs after government funding stops in 1998, said Bruce Howard of Agriculture Canada’s animal industry division.
The dairy network will continue to receive government money until April 1, 1998. Government payments to the program for this fiscal year are $6.25 million. Contributions in fiscal 1996-97 and 1997-98 are $4.2 million and $2 million respectively.
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“The average dairy producer will continue to receive visits of the local milk reporting agency. They will continue to collect the information on each cow,” Howard said.
Genetic evaluations on individual animals will also come from the Canadian Dairy Network.
Review quality of service
While the government has departed from its record-keeping role, it will, if requested, offer a standards and monitoring service to review the quality of genetic evaluations.
“It will provide that Canadian government stamp of approval that the industry seems to want,” said Howard.
Turning record-keeping systems over to industry directed organizations has occurred in the beef, swine and sheep industries.
Beef records are handled by Canada Beef Improvement based in Calgary. The Ottawa based Canadian Centre for Swine Improvement took over hogs and the Canadian Sheep Federation will keep handle sheep records.
