Texel breeders through the Texel Sheep Society are set to deliver a number of significant benefits for the future of the UK sheep industry, according to speakers at the Society’s iTexel Conference, Penrith.
The conference on Saturday 17thNovember heard from a number of those involved with the Society’s ongoing research and development work who outlined how current findings and new technologies would yield benefits for the industry, explained Society chief executive John Yates.
“The Society is investing heavily in research and development, focusing on agritech in a number of fields to ensure the breed and the services provided to members are fit for the future and can continue to deliver for sheep farmers across Great Britain and further afield.”
Speaking to delegates Tim Byrne of AbacusBio said previous research his organisation had delivered, estimated that the Texel breed could, in future, add £23m a year to the UK sheep industry based on current genetic progress and using the existing breeding tools, such as EBVs. “However, when you factor in the potential of genomics and a focus on maternal traits, such as the current work the society are heavily engaged in, you can probably add a further 30% increase in that value.”
Following that SRUC’s Neil Clelland said Society research had the potential to deliver lamb with optimal intramuscular fat (IMF) levels for eating quality. He said that recent sensory panel as part of the Society’s ‘Taste vs Waste’ project had established that for the UK market a chemically assessed intramuscular fat content level of 4-5% was the optimal point.
With the Texel breed proven as a major provider of lean meat yield, optimising IMF can easily be achieved with the new tools available to breeders, adding further value to consumers’ experience.
When working with CT scanning, CT scanned IMF levels of more than 3% were found to deliver the type of eating experience consumers enjoy, he explained.
“Eating quality is vitally important as when consumers have a bad eating experience it can take up to three months for them to re-purchase red meat. IMF levels have a huge influence on sensory traits and measures of easting quality, such as tenderness, juiciness and flavour.”
Dr Clelland said being able to predict IMF and thus, potentially, eating quality, by CT scanning could be hugely significant in breeding sheep for better eating experience. CT allows the potential eating quality to be assessed in live animals, helping breeding programmes identify those breeding stock that perform better for this trait.”
Following this theme, Natalie Howes of AbacusBio said there were opportunities to increase value from UK lamb, with consumer research suggesting UK shoppers were prepared to pay 18% more for lamb from higher animal welfare systems and 15% more for better food safety.
“There are things which can be done on-farm to add value to lamb through both management and breeding. Understanding the market better will help too as it gives opportunities to add value or increase sale volumes based on novel traits,” she explained.
But there were challenges in taking this approach as marketing lamb based on novel traits needed supply chain transparency and collaboration between breeders, finishers and processors, said Miss Howes.
“There is a lot of opportunity to breed traits of appeal to consumers, whether they are for higher welfare, improved animal health or eating quality. The Texel breed is currently at the forefront of this in the UK,” she added.
At a practical level Perthshire-based Texel breeder Neil McGowan said ram breeders needed to be able to supply the sheep their clients needed that looked like the sheep they wanted to buy and perform better than they expect them too, if they were so succeed in future.
“Breeders have to get better at marketing and build trust-based relationships with their customers,” he explained.
Having spent time travelling the world for his Nuffield Scholarship Mr McGowan said he had seen first-hand how others around the world were marketing and selling their stock. “There is no doubt in mind we have to change our mindset here in the UK.
“As ram breeders we need to be able to understand our customers’ systems and then identify the rams to suit them. It isn’t necessary for our customers to understand the technology we’re using, such as estimated breeding values or genomics, if we build the trust with them that we will provide the rams they need to improve their businesses,” he explained.
Mr Yates added that the Society was also investing in further developments to enable easier and simpler data collection and dissemination among both pedigree breeders and commercial customers.
“The Society’s decision to bring performance recording in-house from 2019 under the Texel+ brand is just one strand of investment in the future of the breed to enable breeders and their customers to get the most out of the breed going forward.
“Texel + will allow members to access valuable information dervived from the wealth of data available from the large number of Texel breeders,” he said.
See videos of all the presentations at the conference here.
