Paula Hynes: Could the Dail genotype politicians?

We housed all the maiden heifers this week, and all that will remain outdoors are a few show heifers that need a few months of grass. Our incalf heifers are still grazing away, but they will be housed in the next few days.

Cows have been housed full-time this week, I truly would love to keep grazing while the conditions are so good, but we will have a high demand for grass in January, so it is important to realize the value of grass in the diet to fresh calvers then and ensure the first rotation will last until the end of March. 

The autumn-calvers are loving the addition of maize silage to their TMR diet. We do two fresh mixes a day for them, a case of little and often, but fresh feed on the feed rail really drives intakes.

Amongst all the housing and feeding this week, the clipping crate and clippers were back in action as Acclaim got her first haircut since calving as preparations get into full swing for the RUAS Winter Fair in mid-December. We are really excited about the team we have entered, and are getting all our paperwork ready now in preparation for export to Northern Ireland.

We have begun breeding some of the autumn-calvers, and are awaiting the arrival of some new sires on farm, which will see the vast majority of cows and heifers bred quickly. 

Progenesis Aneesh is a hugely sought-after sire globally; he is a Bullseye son with a high conformation score and the 2023 Holstein Canadian Cow Of The Year in his pedigree. In total, we will have seven newly coded sires used this autumn.

The ICBF codes all bulls in Ireland, and previously, it had seemed a lengthy process, but Margaret Browne of the ICBF has been such a huge help to us in ensuring bulls are coded efficiently and also explaining the information required to complete the process. 

The vast majority of International sires are genotyped these days. In order to code a bull in Ireland, the ICBF requires the sire's genotype file in the correct format, and the zootechnical information must also be provided along with the parentage data, which goes to the breed society. 

Once genetic companies are willing to provide this data, a sire can be available for coding in less than seven days with a code generated the moment the semen arrives in Ireland - all of which speeds up delivery of semen on farm and is another way we can fast-track genetic gain. 

I look back at when we first started using MB Luckylady Bullseye on the farm; we served Acclaim on natural heat the day the straws were released, and the result nine months later was his first daughter born in Ireland who has now been flushed, providing us with five grade A embryos.

Genetic gain is key on every dairy farm and we are extremely lucky to have the ICBF in Ireland and probably often don’t appreciate enough what they have done for genetic gain.

They maintain one of the largest cattle genotype databases in the world, storing genotype data for almost five million cattle now, which is growing at a rapid pace, with one million genotypes added in 2024.

They are also undertaking a major upgrade of their genetic infrastructure to improve output efficiencies. The scale of this database allows the ICBF to harness genomic selection effectively, identifying elite females and sires earlier whilst also correcting parentage, allowing for accelerated genetic progress and for more selective management and matings. 

Research is constantly being added to the breeding indexes, and I often think that with advancements in science and research combined with increased computer power, the level of data the ICBF will be able to provide to Irish farmers through its genomic database will be phenomenal.

Supercomputers process huge amounts of data quickly and can cost in excess of 10 million dollars, but that will all change in the not-so-distant future.

Pete's brother works in Paris with a French start-up company working on supercomputers of the future, and the day will come when a laptop will have the computer power of what we know as supercomputers. 

Imagine the capability of someone in the ICBF if they were able to process all the data from the entire Irish dairy herd along with millions of genotypes from their laptop. On the farm, we would most likely be in a position where we would see real-time genetic evaluations at our fingertips on the ICBF app.

Now, with an upcoming general election looming and all these thoughts of genotypes running around in my head, it occurred to me, could Dail Eireann possibly look at learning a few lessons from the ICBF and even consider genotyping electoral candidates in the future? 

With only a couple of weeks left to election day, even the ICBF couldn’t genotype and process the data from our election hopefuls this time. 

The Dail might consider that this would be of huge benefit to voters in the future, though, as we could look up candidates on a Dail app and view their indexes for health, housing, finance, agriculture, economy, and climate. 

We could vote for candidates based on the indexes that suit us best; most importantly, though, we would gain increased reliability having genotyped politicians; we would simply know our chosen politician would have a more reliable chance of delivering. 

As a voter at the moment, I feel like every candidate is promising us so many good things, reminding us of all the wonderful good they have done; unfortunately, none of them can remember what they haven’t delivered on, and some will forget what they promised to deliver. 

Should Dail Eireann consider this option of increased reliability and better access to information at their fingertips, then there's no better place to get some guidance than the friendly, helpful staff in the ICBF and who knows, the future might even allow us to vote on the Dail Eireann app.