Livestock industry to benefit from government investment in genomics facility

Calgary, AB – The Canadian Cattlemen’s Association (CCA) welcomed today’s Government of Canada investment toward the establishment of a new facility in Edmonton that will provide genomics technologies and services to Canada’s livestock producers.

Genomics technologies allow producers to identify livestock with the most sought after traits, said CCA President Travis Toews. "Continued development and adoption of genomics technologies will be important to the long term competitiveness of the Canadian cattle industry," he said.

Through the Beef Cattle Research Council (BCRC), the CCA has invested producer dollars collected through Canada's National Check-off to support a number of research projects led by Livestock Gentec research partners at the Universities of Alberta and Guelph.

Beginning with the initial work to sequence the bovine genome, BCRC-funded research projects have identified a number of important gene markers that are associated with economically important traits such as feed efficiency and beef tenderness.

The infrastructure funding announced today will help move the results from industry’s previous research investments out of the lab and see them evolve into management tools that can be used by industry.