{"id":8879,"date":"2018-06-28T12:30:59","date_gmt":"2018-06-28T17:30:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/?p=8879"},"modified":"2018-10-24T11:05:54","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T16:05:54","slug":"bif-celebrates-50-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/bif-celebrates-50-years","title":{"rendered":"BIF Celebrates 50 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"
Written by\u00a0Lisa Bard , BluePrint Media<\/em><\/h5>\n

The Beef Improvement Federation (BIF) is celebrating 50 years in 2018. Themed \u201cElevating the Industry,\u201d the Annual Meeting and Research Symposium is poised not only to celebrate the last 50 years but launch into the next 50.
\nBIF was officially founded in 1968, but its formation began the previous January during a meeting at the National Western Stock Show. At that time, a group of producers and researchers \u2013 spearheaded by Colorado cattle producer, lawyer and performance evaluation advocate Ferry Carpenter, and Frank Baker, the federal Extension livestock specialist in 1967 \u2013 met with the goal to move the cattle industry from its historical basis of visual appraisal to one of evaluation based on performance.
\nThus began a very powerful and intentional \u201cperformance movement\u201d in the cattle industry that continues and thrives today. Fifty years later, the 2018 BIF Annual Meeting and Research Symposium will return to Colorado June 20-23 at the Embassy Suites Convention Center in Loveland.
\nEach year, the symposium focuses on research, innovation and education for producers and scientists alike on current issues facing the beef cattle industry \u201cto connect science and industry to improve beef cattle genetics.\u201d BIF\u2019s three-leaf-clover logo symbolizes the link between industry, Extension and research.<\/p>\n

The Beginnings <\/strong><\/h3>\n

In the late \u201960s and \u201970s when BIF was formed, the cattle industry was experiencing a great deal of change with the influx of Continental breeds and the implementation of artificial insemination and crossbreeding. Many states had Beef Cattle Improvement Associations (BCIA) but no standard procedures or measurements. At the same time, land-grant universities were conducting more research on genetics and how genetic evaluation could improve cattle herds. Germplasm research being conducted at the U.S. Meat Animal Research Center would provide incentive and data to create and formulate genetic evaluation. Other data collected by producers and breed associations would add to that.
\nCreating and utilizing new evaluation methods based on performance versus visual appraisal was not an easy road. The first step was to standardize performance testing, including the terminology, the actual methods of measurement and the education as to what the information meant. Over the years, there were a few growing pains and disagreements, but the common goal prevailed.
\nSteve Radakovich of Radakovich Cattle Company, Earlham, Iowa, was BIF president in 1983-1984 when BIF was still young and evolving. As a graduate student at Colorado State University in the \u201970s under renowned animal geneticist Jim Brinks, Ph.D., Radakovich was encouraged to attend BIF. This early exposure led to his lifelong participation in BIF.
\n\u201cBack then we were a bit of a divided camp. We had one group who were the \u2018weigh and pray\u2019 folks,\u201d Radakovich says. \u201cThey would stand by the scales and pray that the animal weighed more than he did the time before. Then there was the systems group, which I was a part of, who asked questions such as, \u2018Is bigger really better?\u2019
\n\u201cThe weigh and pray guys thought that the systems guys were nuts and these two approaches led to some pretty good arguments.\u201d
\nAt that time, some were leaning heavily toward advancing methodology and figuring out how to standardize data collection and utilization, which then led to discussion about the direction of the seedstock industry. During this critical time in the industry, BIF facilitated this direction through the exchange of ideas.
\nWillie Altenburg, owner of Altenburg Super Baldy Ranch just north of Fort Collins, Colo., and breeder of Simmental and Angus seedstock for more than 40 years, was BIF president in 1999-2000. His recollection of the early days was that BIF \u201cwas very small with not very high attendance. In some ways that was positive because you make a lot of progress, given small committee meetings.
\n\u201cThere were times when maybe six people were voting and making decisions on things like formulas and direction, and people like me would sit back in awe in those small meetings and watch those great minds at work.\u201d
\nOnce BIF began to grow and reach a larger audience, in part due to the availability of the presentations and proceedings online, BIF exploded, with attendance now more than 500 people and sometimes as large as 700. It not only affects meeting attendees but also reaches a global audience who access online information after the meetings.
\n\u201cBIF has always been the place where performance cattlemen gather and philosophize about performance and genetic issues,\u201d Altenburg says. \u201cOver the years, the contributions of BIF to the performance cattle industry have been industry leading. BIF gave the concepts, research and performance philosophy a place to launch and grow, and other countries still look to the United States for performance testing and evaluation.\u201d
\nAngus and Braunvieh breeder Steve Whitmire of Ridgefield Farms in North Carolina served as BIF president in 2013-2014. He originally became involved in BIF to get as close as possible to the cutting edge of the beef industry \u2013 and is why he continues to be involved.
\n\u201cBecause BIF is the one organization that bridges across all breeds and academic institutions, it helps focus limited research dollars into the most promising areas,\u201d Whitmire says. \u201cThe early pioneers set aside their breed priorities and personal egos and focused on what was best for the industry.\u201d
\nMark Enns, Ph.D., professor of animal breeding and genetics at Colorado State University and organizer of the 2018 BIF Symposium, also got his first exposure to BIF as a graduate student in the \u201980s.\u201cBIF helped create the unified vision for genetic improvement throughout the beef industry and established common ground for all the breed associations and all the cooperative breed improvement groups to work under,\u201d Enns says. \u201cWe cannot discount the brilliant minds who came up with the idea for BIF and recognized the need for it.\u201d
\nThroughout the years, BIF has made significant contributions to the beef industry, particularly the seedstock sector. \u201cBIF has allowed the smaller, family seedstock producer to compete on the same playing field with the larger seedstock producer,\u201d Radakovich says. \u201cBIF standardized evaluation so that the smaller operators could utilize the methodology, could pursue an objective selection process and could compete with larger operations. Without the standard methodology, they would not have access to those tools.\u201d
\nMatt Spangler, Ph.D., associate professor of animal science at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, says he believes that \u201cthe work of the initial founders of BIF created the platform that we know today as National Cattle Evaluation. Without these efforts, estimation of the genetic merit of animals as parents would have been delayed and would look substantially different today.\u201d
\nCurrent BIF President Donnell Brown, R.A. Brown Ranch, Throckmorton, Texas, remembers his first BIF meeting. \u201cBIF was the first cattle meeting I went to after I graduated from college,\u201d Brown says. \u201cI was able to talk with the scientists whose research I had studied and talk to the breeders whose catalogs I had been pouring through. They were the leaders in the beef industry. It was inspirational.
\n\u201cThe seedstock producers weren\u2019t in sales mode and we weren\u2019t at a breed association meeting where politics were involved. It was just a meeting about the facts and how we would use the resources we had to more efficiently and effectively raise better beef. BIF is still about that.\u201d
\nOthers believe that BIF\u2019s greatest contributions have been the development of expected progeny difference (EPD) standards and technology; advancing the use of new, more accurate selection tools and providing a forum for the industry and scientific communities to exchange ideas.<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Challenges & Beyond <\/strong><\/h3>\n

Fifty years later, genetic evaluation has progressed to genomically enhanced EPDs, across-breed evaluations, evaluation indexes and EDPs on a huge array of traits. Today\u2019s cattle industry is also faced with a great many issues including animal welfare, the environment, diet and health, and food safety, all of which can be affected by genetics in some part.
\nAccording to Radakovich, genetics can have a big effect on issues for the future, particularly in adapting cattle to different climates and environments all over the world as well as in the United States. Some are studying the grazing habits of different biological types of cattle, which appear to have the same heritability as weaning weight.
\n\u201cWe could be breeding cattle in the future that are hill climbers and will graze hillsides versus riparian areas because that is their genetic predisposition,\u201d Radakovich says. \u201cThis is where BIF fits in with issues such as animal welfare, animal behavior, etc., especially with genomics. If we can isolate the gene that determines grazing habits, then it will have a big impact.\u201d
\nAccording to Enns, BIF will help guide the industry in how we use, validate and verify the rapidly evolving genomic pipeline and put these new traits to use. Regional evaluation will be a big thing in the future, including the development of regional EPDs and development of specialized adaptability traits. Scientific attention to these traits has been coming for the past five to 10 years and is now becoming more important for regions of the world where climate, adaptability, disease tolerance and feed efficiency are big issues.
\n\u201cGenetic evaluation may help us balance the competing needs of global beef production with sustainability and conservation,\u201d Enns says. \u201cThe United States is a first-world country and our needs are different than those in third-world countries who are simply concerned with finding a protein product to eat. Understanding these competing visions and how genetic tools can be used to address these visions is important.\u201d
\nRadakovich agrees. \u201cThe population increase of today and tomorrow poses a great threat to resources and, as beef producers, we have to figure out how we can remain sustainable under this pressure that gets worse and worse all the time,\u201d he says. \u201cWe must be adaptable with fewer and fewer resources. Our big advantage is that cattle are ruminants and can consume feedstuffs that can\u2019t be consumed and converted by other protein sources.\u201d
\nGenomics can be comparable to the computer age with gene mapping and epigenetics as the next cutting-edge technologies. Genomics and genetic advancements will also allow commercial producers to concentrate on other issues.
\n\u201cIf a commercial operation is doing well genetically, then they can move on to address some of the larger, industry concerns such as environmental issues, food safety and animal welfare. A good manager can only handle a few topics at a time, and if their genetics are solid, then they can worry about the other concerns,\u201d Radakovich says.
\nWhile many, including Whitmire, believe that BIF\u2019s greatest contribution was the development of EPD standards and technology, the future is wide open. \u201cI have no doubt that the genetic tools for evaluation will become infinitely more accurate and widely used in the coming decades, and the industry will profit from this,\u201d Whitmire says. \u201cBIF will help recognize the long-term issues that face the cattle and beef industry and will focus resources to solve those problems.\u201d
\nSpangler has a broader view. \u201cGenetic evaluation will change such that \u2018seedstock\u2019 will drift further and further away from \u2018purebred,\u2019\u201d Spangler says. \u201cThe data used to inform genetic merit will be weighted more heavily towards commercial-level data. The entities participating in data generation for genetic evaluation and seedstock production will change such that there is more alignment between the end-product and germplasm at the nucleus level. The general nature of breed associations, and their role, will change. I\u2019m not sure if these changes occur in 10 or 50 years, but they will occur.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elevating the Industry <\/strong><\/h3>\n

The 2018 50th Anniversary BIF Symposium promises to address all this and more.
\n\u201cBIF is the one meeting where you get the interaction of the genetic improvement leaders in both industry and academia,\u201d Enns says. \u201cIf what we are developing in science is not able to be translated to the industry, then we are wasting our time. There has always been this free-flow conversation of constructive criticism for the betterment of genetic improvement. This meeting is where the appropriate application of science is developed by discussions of the people using the science and the people developing it.\u201d
\nBIF Vice President Lee Leachman, Leachman Cattle of Colorado, Wellington, Colo., agrees. \u201cThis is the meeting where practice and theory meet and the learning is going both ways. If we really could get into the nuts and bolts of the history of BIF, we would likely find that most of the innovations sprang from the BIF meetings and the discussions there. If you want to stretch your imagination, but do so at a level that can be put into practice, this is the place to do that,\u201d Leachman says.
\nFor 2018, the first day is dedicated to what the future of North American beef production looks like. The speakers, breakout session and wrap-up will evaluate the future from a variety of viewpoints, including beef quality, sustainability, efficiency and traits not yet considered.
\nThe second day is about data \u2013 how to collect it, who will own it and how it\u2019s used. How can we better leverage all the data in an internet-permeated society? This year\u2019s program is also about helping the industry look at the possible\/probable issues that will need to be addressed over the next 50 years.
\nThe meeting also includes a Young Producer\u2019s Symposium, an evening at the CSU Stadium Club, a Friday dinner out sponsored by Leachman Cattle of Colorado and Zinpro, and area tours on Saturday.
\nThe 2018 BIF Research Symposium and Convention is hosted by the CSU Department of Animal Sciences, the Colorado Cattlemen\u2019s Association and the Colorado Livestock Association. For more information, a full schedule and registration information, visit beefimprovement.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the late \u201960s and \u201970s when BIF was formed, the cattle industry was experiencing a great deal of change…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2400,"featured_media":8880,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-8879","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brahman-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8879"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8902,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8879\/revisions\/8902"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brahmanjournal.com\/cattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}