Representatives from the USDA – Agricultural Research Service (USDA – ARS) and Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding (CDCB) signed the Nonfunded Cooperative Agreement (NFCA) on March 27. The agreement allows for the transition of genetic evaluation calculations, maintains the industry cooperator database and focuses USDA – Animal Improvement Programs Laboratory’s (AIPL) mission on research.

For its new role, CDCB retained an interim team with extensive dairy cattle genetic evaluation experience. Duane Norman, retired AIPL research leader, will lead the team and Leigh Walton, a long-time AIPL data analyst, will manage the information technology.

This team will work in cooperation with current AIPL staff to produce the April 2013 genetic evaluations and release genomic information. This is part of the 24-month transition plan outlined in the NFCA.

Beginning with the April 2013 dairy cattle genetic evaluations, genomic evaluations may be obtained on bovine males and females. CDCB announced its fee schedule, which will be collected as part of the genotyping testing costs, with fee revenue being used to help offset costs related to producing genetic evaluations, maintaining the database and providing management benchmarks.

For further information, contact Duane Norman; CDCB Chair Ole Meland or CDCB Vice Chair Jay Mattison. PD

—From USDA – ARS news release