President ’ s Message
Moving Forward
By Gary Fuchs , NALF president
Welcome to the October issue of LIMOUSIN TODAY .
As I am writing this article it has been a busy couple of weeks for our breed . We have just completed our August Board of Directors meeting in Denver and we are in the first week of the introduction of our new EPD system : Single-Step EPDs for Limousin powered by BOLT .
First , a little about the board meeting . It is always a good experience to gather with the rest of your Board of Directors and your staff for our meetings three times each year . I enjoy the fellowship and serious discussion we have each time . The members of your board are very serious about their responsibility to the success of our breed . Each member is dedicated to finding ways to make our breed more acceptable in the commercial industry and to educate others about the value of Limousin genetics .
In other parts of NALF media you can read about the actions taken by the board during this meeting . The thing that was of great encouragement to me was the time that was taken to discuss the value of our cattle in the commercial cattle industry and the things that we
can do to make our cattle better . Each of us as breeders can improve our herds . Our individual improvement in the commercially acceptable traits will help move the entire breed to a more beneficial place in the industry .
We also need to consider our individual responsibility to educate commercial producers about the value of Limousin genetics . It is a continuing process we each need to be involved in . We need to discuss the improvement of our cattle with the commercial breeders who are our customers , but equally important we need to share with those that we would like to be our customers .
The second big event the last few days was the release of our new EPD system . This release has been a long time coming . Several other breeds have already moved to this system and our time came . By the time you read this you will have had time to read the articles about how BOLT affected the EPD ’ s of our cattle . I encourage each of you to study your herds to discover the value in the new system .
As has been discussed many times about the new system there are changes . Many of the changes are basis shifts and require each of us to understand the shifts and to be able to communicate to others about them .
Our breed continues to look very good in comparison to other breeds when an evaluation of the various EPD ’ s is conducted . But , while we look good in almost all EPD areas , we lag very far behind in Marbling EPD . Marbling is a very important characteristic in the final product of our industry . Your board is very aware of this issue and is striving to develop targets for us as breeders . Hopefully , the establishment of the targets and what I know will be a dedicated move by each of us to reach those targets , can move us up the graph on marbling as compared to other breeds . As we are aware of the value of improving the Marbling EPD of our cattle , we must not neglect the things where we are good . Therefore , as a part of the target process we will also be emphasizing some balance in our EPD ’ s , so we can continue to improve our best characteristics .
Thanks to each of you as Limousin breeders . I hope we can continue to work together to move our breed forward . I
6 | OCTOBER 2018