The role of a national evaluation system in promoting dairy sustainability*

Sustainable agriculture is best defined as a balance of practices that promote economic vitality, protect the natural environment, and build healthy communities in the present without compromising the future. The dairy industry has achieved tremendous gains in productive efficiency following decades of work with these goals in mind. A major tool contributing to this progress is the US National Cooperator Database (NCD), developed in partnership with key industry groups. Involving a complex system of both domestic and international data sharing, the NCD now includes >9 million genotypes, >100 million pedigrees, and >100 million lactation records. The primary outputs of this system are national genetic and genomic evaluations, published tri-annually. Greater genetic gains have resulted in faster rates of inbreeding, a well-established antagonist to cow health and performance. Dairy genetics are traded all over the world, and the NCD enables the monitoring of inbreeding at the global population level. Dairy systems are continually evolving thanks to technology advancements, changing consumer values, and resource availability; frequent interrogation of the NCD can facilitate the early detection of changing industry trends that affect the accuracy of existing evaluations, but also highlight the need for improvement tools that are just as dynamic as the dairy industry. An industry-wide effort is underway to develop a herd-level sustainability metrics platform that would support dairy producer ability to farm and track their progress in key health and production areas. This pre-competitive collaboration among dairy industry groups ensures the reliable flow of accurate data so we can continue to develop tools to support the dairy producer in the present and future.