Summary

There is a growing demand worldwide for animal protein due to the growing world population and changing eating patterns. In order to meet this demand in a sustainable manner while also considering animal welfare and animal health, cattle breeding can make a vital contribution.

How does the project help?
Within the project, large breeding organisations work together in developing new tools to improve animal breeding, using rapid developments in the field of genomics. The project aims at developing advanced statistical applications and bio-informatics applications in order to unravel the relationship between genetics and characteristics. Apart from that, methods and knowledge are being developed to measure characteristics such as behaviour, food efficiency and susceptibility to diseases.

What has the project achieved?
The project has already given us many new insights ,which can be applied to the development of new cattle, chicken, broiler (meat) chicken and pig breeds. A detailed description of the project results can be found on www.breed4food.com.

Project information

Project title: Breed4Food
Project number: TKI AF-12018
Duration: 2012 –
Public budget: € 3,349,000
Private budget: € 20,007,000
Project partners: Wageningen Research, CRV, Cobb Europe, Hendrix Genetics Research, TOPIGS