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 breeding will need to deliver outcomes that embrace change to meet production and environmental targets. Recent AHDB figures show the breeding cattle population is relatively static but with a continual decline in suckler numbers. There will be a session that will delve into sustainable suckler production and assess what genetics are required to produce beef from the dairy herd.
The conference will kick off with an interactive workshop on Monday afternoon, followed by beef presentations on Tuesday and dairy presentations on Wednesday. This year, two bovine sessions will replace the dairy workshop. The first one, on Tuesday, will explore how genetic tools can add value and reduce inbreeding. The second, on Wednesday morning, will assess the opportunities for monitoring cattle health using artificial intelligence.
Some of the confirmed speakers include:
Vet and Nuffield scholar Hannah Batty from LLM Vets. She will reveal the results of her recent Nuffield report, which explores how farmers can better manage people to deliver improved cow health and welfare.
Tianhai Yan from the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI) at Hillsborough, will discuss the Feed into Beef project, which has resulted in new nutritional models for feed intake and energy feeding standards.
Martin Jenkins from Defra will divulge what funding is on offer to help farmers improve herd health and welfare.
Award-winning organic dairy farmer Sophie Gregory will explain what breeding tools she uses to identify the most profitable cows within her herd.
Ginny Sherwin from the School of Veterinary Medicine and Science, University of Nottingham, will talk about how farmers can balance profit and animal welfare when rearing the next generation of their herd.
Mr King adds: “The conference is a great chance to see how our cattle industry is shaping up for the future in terms of delivering its responsibilities in both producing food and looking after our scarce resources. “It also presents great networking opportunities, alongside catching up with contacts, old and new.”
The conference will take place at the Telford Hotel and Golf Resort from 20-22 January 2025. The full programme of speakers will be announced in due course. Accommodation is available in the conference hotel for £125/night. All bookings to be made directly through BCBC, contact heidi.bradbury@cattlebreeders.org.uk