Breeding sheep for a greener future - SBRT conference 2024

The conference ‘Breeding sheep for a greener future’ will cover a range of sheep breeding topics within the wider role of genetics, the essential building blocks for the future of the UK sheep industry. Over the weekend attendees will gain insight to sustainable solutions, industry resilience, policy direction, profitability, breeding to meet market demands and reputation of the sector.

Speakers from across the UK industry and beyond will join a host of farmers to share ideas, objectives and challenges from their organisations, research projects and individual on-farm experiences.

The conference starts at 2pm on Friday, 15th November and runs through to lunchtime on Sunday, 17th November.

A brief taste of the programme follows:

Friday afternoon – Breeding sheep for the environment

Speakers from AbacusBio, ADAS, Agresearch (New Zealand), Farming Connect, Innovis, ProHill Group, Sheep Ireland, SRUC and Teagasc will cover the following:

- Environmental breeding goals for maternal and terminal sheep.

- Observations from an international aspect and recent research studies.

- Genomic and phenotypic advances in hill and maternal breeding programmes.

- Highlighting breeding objectives, genetic advances and lessons learnt.

Saturday morning – A breeding vision for the market

Speakers from ABP, AHDB, Euro Quality Lamb Ltd, Langrish Farmers, Lambplan (Australia), Livestock Information Ltd and Morrisons will cover the following:

- A retail focus exploring the green credentials of lamb – delivering a sustainable, quality product to our consumers.

- What drives meat processors and how breeders are rewarded for their product.

- Breeding to improve the consumer eating experience.

- Controlling genetic direction to select animals to achieve breeding and marketing

objectives.

- Economic drivers of wool quality for increased productivity, sustainability and resilience of the industry.

Saturday afternoon – Breeding drivers for the future

Speakers from AHDB, British Texel Sheep society, Coop, EGENES, Euro Quality Lambs Ltd, Lambplan (Australia), Nottingham University and SRUC will cover the following:

- A panel of experts will share their views on a number of topical issues.

- A genomic focus on the future for sheep breeding with updates from current research projects.

Sunday morning – Using breeding programmes and technology to select for specific systems

Speakers from AB Europe, Farmgene, NSA, The Roslin Institute, Liz Genever and independent farmers will cover the following:

- Advances in reproductive technology – embryo transfer, sexed semen and surrogate sires.

- Exploring progress and consequences using high value genetics.

- Focus on emerging systems in the UK with farmer insights to the challenge of selecting sheep to suit a multitude of different systems with alternative demands.