WERA_OLD001: Beef Cattle Breeding in the Western Region
Statement of Issues and Justification
Beef cattle produce high quality protein and other nutrients for human consumption through utilization of land and forage that is typically unavailable for use in direct human food production. These lands and forages occur in highly variable environments requiring cows with different genetic potentials for optimum production. In addition, the high degree of segmentation of the industry from the seedstock producer to the consumer and the varied consumer demands such as lean, hotel-restaurant, and guaranteed tender products combine to make genetic improvement of beef cattle a very complex issue. The myriad of potential owners of an animal during its life do not value performance in the same traits resulting in confusing signals to the commercial and seedstock producers. The purpose of this committee is to develop improved methods of genetic improvement using the latest quantitative and molecular techniques to increase the probability of making economically sound breeding decisions and to disseminate the new information and educate the industry on these genetic improvement methodologies.
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