In principle, both clubs are independent. However, almost without exception, the members of the Förderverein Bioökonomieforschung (FBF) are also members of the federal association. The FBF therefore sees itself as a research department of the BRS. There are five specialist groups from the cattle and pig sectors that award projects independently or participate in nationwide calls for proposals for projects. The focus here is on the practical implementation of the issues that are to be addressed scientifically.

The term "maximum performance" has a very negative connotation in our field. From the breeding approach, the "performance" of a dairy cow is much more than just the milk quantity. As animal breeders, we work on over 50 characteristics of the dairy cow. These include, among others, characteristics such as exterior, i.e. the cow's physique, easy births, cell count content of the milk and length of life. Increasingly, the focus is on health traits that are less hereditary. The focus here is on the claws, udder and fertility. Especially in this area, new breeding values have been introduced in recent years. Here, a sustainable breeding progress - due to the higher genetic complexity (multi-causal trait complexes) and a very large husbandry-environment effect - has only become possible through modern genomic methods in combination with detailed phenotypic trait recording at herd or population level.

The biotechnological methods developed in recent decades, such as artificial insemination and embryo transfer, have led to the targeted application of new bioinformational methods such as "genomic breeding valuation" in practice and have increased breeding success. The optimized collection of more and more traits is also the reason why this development is being used more widely in cattle breeding, especially in dairy cattle breeding, than in pig breeding.

The question of methane production and, ultimately, the overall consideration of emissions is primarily a purely calculative question. If one takes the pure emission into account, the cow is a methane producer, which causes a considerable part of the nationwide methane emission. But one must also see the positive sides of dairy cow husbandry, such as the maintenance of grassland sites, fodder cultivation and fertilizer production for the nutrient cycle. If we then place the methane emissions of our domestic cattle in the global context, the proportion is much lower.

We are currently working with the eMissionCow project to record the individual methane production of dairy cows and try to develop a breeding approach with regard to feed and methane efficiency per unit of output in the context of the lifetime performance of the cows. 

We view the potential opportunities offered by these modern biotechnology methods as very valuable. Nevertheless, this type of breeding influence must be used very carefully and under consideration of all risks. Our members have drawn up a joint declaration of commitment to this end, which includes, for example, the identification of genome-derived breeding products and an explicit limitation to traits that enhance animal welfare. At present, however, EU legislation does not permit the practical use of genome editing. The possible applications are therefore currently limited to individual research projects. Currently, two research projects with FBF participation are ongoing as well as a model study on the production of genome-edited bovine embryos as a "proof-of-concept" study.

Interview: Philipp Graf