The Trans Tasman Simmental (TTS) Committee held its third meeting in Armidale in October,

attended by Simmental Australia representatives, Bill Almond (President), Tom Baker and Peter Speers and Simmental NZ representatives, Craig Martin (President), Peter McWilliam and Gemma Carmichael. The group also had a very interesting visit to the Shorthorn Society’s Durham Research herd at Orange, NSW to discuss implications of breed research programs.

The purpose of TTS is to demonstrate industry leadership and to increase the members' profitability through implementing cooperative, innovative breed development programs. Its aims are to:

§         Increase market share and utilisation of Simmentals in both countries

§         Improve profitability of Stud members

§         Increase exchange of genetics between Australia and New Zealand

§         Improve Trans Tasman relations, with heightened confidence & enthusiasm amongst  members.

TTS is developing programs in four broad areas, each with a number of cooperative, resource sharing  sub-programs:

§         Technical Issues

§         Marketing Issues

§         Increased Trans Tasman trade in superior genetics

§         Increasing efficiencies of Society operations – leading to member benefits

Within these areas, some of the priority issues to address are the:

§         Need to embrace new technology and help members utilise it efficiently

§         Need to demonstrate how Simmental bulls with good EBVs produce:

o        higher bull prices, and

o        increased performance and higher prices for their progeny

§         Need breed research data to improve the accuracy of Breedplan EBVs and to demonstrate the merits of Simmentals to capture increased market share.

§         Need to increase the exposure of Simmental in the media, based on comparative research data and real life commercial success stories.

Achievements and Developments to Date

Ø      Breed magazines produced by each country are now being distributed to members in both countries.

Ø      Consideration being given to more joint involvement and advertising in these and other publications.

Ø      Good news stories, especially commercial successes, to be shared between both countries.

Ø      Publishing on each country’s website relevant news stories from both countries.

Ø      Improving the Search facilities on both Society websites, with links provided to both databases and production of a combined Sire Summary.

Ø      Working together to expand programs for young people, including exchange programs.

Ø      Creating member tours to strengthen liaison between members in both countries and to gain an enhanced appreciation of the Simmentals each produces. The Canadian trip next July will provide another opportunity for members of both societies to travel together.

Ø      Working together to implement a sire progeny test program, with bulls being selected from and used in both countries. The major objective being to improve the quality of the breed’s genetic evaluation. To start within 6 months - details to be released soon.

Ø      Consideration being given to a cooperative research project to gather performance data on Simmentals relative to other breeds. This data will be valuable in strengthening Simmental Breedplan and in marketing the comparative merits of Simmental in crossbreeding programs.

Ø      Working together with ABRI on a number of enhancements to Breedplan, Breed Indexes, Beef Class and the Internet Search facilities to improve the description of an animal’s performance potential and to broaden the exposure of Simmental genetics in both countries.

Ø      Working together to promote new technologies to members and clients, (eg IGF1, Beef Class, Gene Markers, QA system, etc), and to pool data to more quickly develop an improved genetic evaluation for Simmental utilising these new tools.

The TTS Committee is working hard to fast track these initiatives and is excited about the potential benefits to members that could flow from this cooperative program.