New Zealand agritech cooperative LIC has launched a new tool to help dairy farmers keep step with increasing demands to
reduce their environmental footprint.
LIC’s new HoofPrint™ index provides farmers with accurate insights on bulls born since 1 January 2009 that have the
potential to breed dairy herds with a lighter environmental footprint – cows that produce less methane and nitrogen per
kilogram of milk solids.
Each year LIC produces a catalogue showcasing bulls available for use within the upcoming mating season. This year’s Genetics Catalogue has the addition of the new HoofPrint™ index which enables farmers to select bulls based on their predicted ability to
generate daughters with a lower environmental impact.
LIC Chief Executive Wayne McNee explains, “HoofPrintTM is a 10-point ranking system developed to help farmers achieve
their environmental targets and enable them to make more informed decisions about the environmental efficiency of the
milk they produce.
“The ranking system is from 10 to 1, with 10 being the strongest in terms of being the lowest environmental impact per
kg product produced. The index enables farmers to rank and compare enteric methane and urinary nitrogen per kilogram of
milk solid produced, using genetic data across all dairy breeding bulls.”
Enteric methane emissions (generated from cow burps) and urinary nitrogen excretion from cows are two of the major
contributors to the environmental impact of dairy production in New Zealand.
“Farmers are actively seeking to reduce their environmental footprint and new ways to achieve this. Our new index,
alongside our leading genetic options and management tools, will enable farmers to better achieve this while maintaining
productivity.” - Wayne McNee
Assessing actual emissions and excretion from dairy cows in a pasture based system can be difficult for farmers, which
is why LIC has used its HoofPrint™ modelling methodology to quantify the expected emissions and excretion of past,
present and future cows.
“Our focus is on supporting farmers to breed and select cows that most efficiently convert the food they eat into milk
production,” McNee explains, “while maintaining important attributes needed to maximise the productive life of the cow.
“We know high genetic merit animals partition more of their feed eaten into milk solids, and less into waste. This means
more nitrogen is being converted into protein in cow’s milk rather than being excreted as urine or faeces. And that’s
why higher genetic merit animals, on average, perform better when ranked under our HoofPrint™ index.”
McNee says HoofPrint™ is one of a number of new initiatives LIC is working on to help farmers reduce their environmental
impact on farm and improve productivity in a sustainable way.
Copies of LIC’s 2020 Genetics Catalogue, with HoofPrint™ indices relating to LIC’s daughter proven bulls and Premier
Sires® teams, are currently being sent to farmers seeking to select the bulls whose semen they want to use to create the
next generation of their dairy herds. The catalogue is also available on www.lic.co.nz