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Celebrating the release of ICAR Animal Data Exchange version 1.3

I have been involved with the International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR) and its Animal Data Exchange (ADE) working group since I was first privileged to attend its annual conference, or “General Assembly” in Berlin in 2014. It was eye-opening to see all large numbers of people and organisations collaborating in diverse areas around livestock […]

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Animal data standard broadens scope

Version 1.2 of the Animal Data Exchange specification has been released by ICAR, the International Committee for Animal Recording. The ICAR Animal Data Exchange (ADE) Working Group includes animal recording specialists from Europe, the United States, and Australasia. The group has developed a modern, API and JSON-based specification for individual animal data that aligns with […]

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Ways smarter tech can accelerate livestock genetic progress

I started writing about the case for smarter tech in cattle and sheep breeding programmes a while ago, and quickly realised there was more than would fit in a single blog post. In my previous post I described how technology can help us increase the pace of genetic progress, by: Measuring what we can’t easily […]

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The case for smarter tech in cattle and sheep breeding

My first job in livestock performance recording was with the Genetics Section, as it was called, at Ruakura Research Centre in New Zealand. I worked part time while studying at university, transferring research trial data off the government mainframe on reel-to-reel tape, and writing inbreeding coefficient calculation software. The genetics section was based in an […]