Description
9/26/2023
Two years ago ICAR established a task force to identify common measures and traits recorded across many countries. ICAR created a list and supporting definitions of measures and traits tied to dairy sustainability that would apply worldwide. The standards developed by ICAR are key to the products and services provided by milk recording organizations, milk analysis labs, AI’s, genomic testing labs, equipment (such as parlor) manufacturers, dairy information service providers, ID companies, and more. As a result of that initial work, a list of measures and traits was established that countries could incorporate into some type of dairy sustainability index. Countries, like Canada and the United Kingdom, have already moved forward building such indexes for their dairy industry. Robert Fourdraine, PhD was a member of ICAR's working groups and represented input from the United States on which measures to include and the definition of how to calculate those measures. The results of this two-year effort were presented in June at the ICAR annual meeting in Spain to representatives from all over the world. The goal moving forward is to promote the existence of these resources and definitions to the dairy industry and organization involved in the dairy industry. ICAR believes this work will be key to ensure we have a uniform worldwide standard on how to calculate these measures/traits.
