The conference heard from a number of those involved with the Society’s ongoing research and development work who outlined how current findings and new technologies would yield benefits for the industry, explained Society chief executive John Yates.

iTexel Conference

“The Society is investing heavily in research and development, focusing on agritech in a number of fields to ensure the breed and the services provided to members are fit for the future and can continue to deliver for sheep farmers across Great Britain and further afield.”

Speaking to delegates Tim Byrne of AbacusBio said previous research his organisation had delivered, estimated that the Texel breed could, in future, add £23m a year to the UK sheep industry based on current genetic progress and using the existing breeding tools, such as EBVs. “However, when you factor in the potential of genomics and a focus on maternal traits, such as the current work the society are heavily engaged in, you can probably add a further 30% increase in that value.”

Following that SRUC’s Neil Clelland said Society research had the potential to deliver lamb with optimal intramuscular fat (IMF) levels for eating quality. He said that recent sensory panel as part of the Society’s ‘Taste vs Waste’ project had established that for the UK market a chemically assessed intramuscular fat content level of 4-5% was the optimal point.

With the Texel breed proven as a major provider of lean meat yield, optimising IMF can easily be achieved with the new tools available to breeders, adding further value to consumers’ experience.

When working with CT scanning, CT scanned IMF levels of more than 3% were found to deliver the type of eating experience consumers enjoy, he explained.

“Eating quality is vitally important as when consumers have a bad eating experience it can take up to three months for them to re-purchase red meat. IMF levels have a huge influence on sensory traits and measures of easting quality, such as tenderness, juiciness and flavour.”

Dr Clelland said being able to predict IMF and thus, potentially, eating quality, by CT scanning could be hugely significant in breeding sheep for better eating experience. CT allows the potential eating quality to be assessed in live animals, helping breeding programmes identify those breeding stock that perform better for this trait.”

Following this theme, Natalie Howes of AbacusBio said there were opportunities to increase value from UK lamb, with consumer research suggesting UK shoppers were prepared to pay 18% more for lamb from higher animal welfare systems and 15% more for better food safety.

“There are things which can be done on-farm to add value to lamb through both management and breeding. Understanding the market better will help too as it gives opportunities to add value or increase sale volumes based on novel traits,” she explained.

But there were challenges in taking this approach as marketing lamb based on novel traits needed supply chain transparency and collaboration between breeders, finishers and processors, said Miss Howes.

“There is a lot of opportunity to breed traits of appeal to consumers, whether they are for higher welfare, improved animal health or eating quality. The Texel breed is currently at the forefront of this in the UK,” she added.

At a practical level Perthshire-based Texel breeder Neil McGowan said ram breeders needed to be able to supply the sheep their clients needed that looked like the sheep they wanted to buy and perform better than they expect them too, if they were so succeed in future.

“Breeders have to get better at marketing and build trust-based relationships with their customers,” he explained.

Having spent time travelling the world for his Nuffield Scholarship Mr McGowan said he had seen first-hand how others around the world were marketing and selling their stock. “There is no doubt in mind we have to change our mindset here in the UK.

“As ram breeders we need to be able to understand our customers’ systems and then identify the rams to suit them. It isn’t necessary for our customers to understand the technology we’re using, such as estimated breeding values or genomics, if we build the trust with them that we will provide the rams they need to improve their businesses,” he explained.

Mr Yates added that the Society was also investing in further developments to enable easier and simpler data collection and dissemination among both pedigree breeders and commercial customers.

“The Society’s decision to bring performance recording in-house from 2019 under the Texel+ brand is just one strand of investment in the future of the breed to enable breeders and their customers to get the most out of the breed going forward.

“Texel + will allow members to access valuable information dervived from the wealth of data available from the large number of Texel breeders,” he said.

Brexit Uncertainties Mirrored by Opportunities

While Brexit uncertainty may be the biggest factor currently playing on sheep farmers’ minds, there are reasons to be positive, delegates at the Texel Sheep Society’s iTexel conference were told.

Rizvan Khalid of Craven Arms, Shropshire-based Euro Quality Lamb said a growing young Muslim demographic across the EU was likely to see increasing demand for sheepmeat.

“In the UK at the moment it is estimated that Muslims, which makes up just 5% of the total population, consume 20% of the sheepmeat eaten in the UK.

Similarly, in France there are 6m Muslims and by 2030 it is estimated that 29% of 15-19 year olds will be Muslim. “There are differences in the type of sheepmeat required in different countries, with the UK Muslim population being largely south Asian and thus more inclined to eat mutton. However, much of the European Muslim population being northern African and Middle Eastern and are thus more likely to eat lamb,” he explained.

Adding a note of caution Mr Khalid said it would be important for UK producers and processors to maintain their focus on the European market as, while other emerging markets offered opportunities, they were unlikely to be immediate fillips to the trade. “These will be longer-term opportunities and won’t in the near future replace the high volumes taken by EU markets.”

Meanwhile, SRUC’s senior agricultural economist Steven Thomson said he believed the current Brexit deal was potentially the best that could be achieved and was without doubt better than a ‘no-deal’ scenario.

“The UK sheep sector is reliant on access to EU markets, a no-deal would put that at serious risk for some time and could potentially result in tariffs being applied to UK sheepmeat exports to the EU.

“A ‘no-deal’ would, in all likelihood, result in the UK government cutting import tariffs on imports, resulting in a double whammy effect of cheap imports and limited exports,” he said.

The bottom line is that every Brexit analysis says farming is likely to take a hit on the way out of the EU, he added. “There are also hurdles to be overcome with future support payments as World Trade Organisation rules say that support payments have to be in lieu of income forgone or additional costs incurred.

“That brings in to question the idea of public money for public goods as espoused by many in the UK at the moment. On lowland units implementing environmental measures this may be easier to work around as obviously if you take land out of high output arable or root crop production for environmental schemes the income forgone is significant.

“But much of the UK sheep industry is on marginal land and the income forgone or costs incurred in these areas is going to be significantly less than that in more productive systems.”

Looking at consumption Mr Thomson said sheepmeat was at the mercy of the markets and consumer incomes, with a 7-9% fall in sales coming when prices increased by 10% and sales dipping by 5% when consumer incomes fell by 10%. “There are challenges to come and the industry must help itself to overcome them,” he said.

However, Natalie Howes of AbacusBio said there were opportunities to increase value from UK lamb, with consumer research suggesting shoppers were prepared to pay 18% more for lamb from higher animal welfare systems and 15% more for better food safety.

“There are things which can be done on-farm to add value to lamb through both management and breeding. Understanding the market better will help too as it gives opportunities to add value or increase sale volumes based on novel traits,” she explained.

But there were challenges in taking this approach as marketing lamb based on novel traits needs supply chain transparency and collaboration between breeders, finishers and processors, said Miss Howes. “There is a lot of opportunity to breed traits of appeal to consumers, whether they are for higher welfare, improved animal health or eating quality. The Texel breed is currently at the forefront of this in the UK,” added Miss Howes.

Understanding Customers’ Needs Key for Ram Breeders

Ram breeders need to be able to supply the sheep their clients need that look like the sheep they want to buy if they are to succeed in future, according to Perthshire-based Texel breeder and Nuffield Scholar Neil McGowan.

“Breeders have to get better at marketing and build trust-based relationships with their customers,” he explained.

Having spent time travelling the world for his Nuffield Scholarship Mr McGowan said he had seen first-hand how others around the world were marketing and selling their stock. “There is no doubt in mind we have to change our mindset here in the UK.

“As ram breeders we need to be able to understand our customers systems and then identify the rams to suit them. It isn’t necessary for our customers to understand the technology we’re using, such as estimated breeding values or genomics, if we build the trust with them that we will provide the rams they need to improve their businesses,” he explained.

This was backed up by SRUC’s Mike Coffey who simplified it further, suggesting commercial ram buyers didn’t have to have an understanding of how EBVs were calculated. “I don’t understand how the weather forecast is formulated, but I trust it.”

Mr McGowan said it was though important for breeders to fully understand all the genetic tools available to them. “These range from simple pedigrees through to estimated breeding values and, increasingly, genomics. These tools are a vital part of the breeder’s tool box.”

However, he said these couldn’t come at the expense of the stockman’s eye and judgement. “This is the least defined of all the tools available, but ultimately all stockmen look for character and class in their stud stock. The animals we chose to breed with have character and class that isn’t necessarily understood, but makes them stand out from the rest.”

Geneticist Tim Byrne of AbacusBio added that in future the best way to explain breeding values, be they traditional EBVs or new genomic breeding values, would be to put a monetary value on them. “Showing buyers what the economic potential of a ram is to their flock will help them understand just what that ram can do for them,” he said.

When looking at genetic improvement in future Dr Byrne said a number of new technologies would help breeders make quicker progress to benefit their commercial customers. “Genomics and gene editing are just two such tools which can help breeders in future and greatly increase the economic impact of a breed,” he said.

Dr Byrne said work done by AbacusBio had estimated that the Texel breed will add £23m a year to the UK sheep industry every year based on current genetic progress and using the existing breeding tools, such as EBVs. “However, when you factor in the potential of genomics you can probably add a further 30% increase in that value.”

To make best use of future technologies though it would be important for the value of emerging agricultural technologies to be demonstrated to regulators. “There has to be a balance between innovation and regulation and that requires the regulators to be able to understand the value the technology can offer,” he explained.

And Irish researcher Noirin McHugh backed up both Mr McGowan and Dr Byrne with her insight to the work being done in the Irish sheep industry to progress breeding technologies.

Dr McHugh of Teagasc said the Irish sheep industry was looking to make best use of genomics through its Sheep Ireland programme, but had a simple star system to showcase a ram’s potential to buyers. “Rams are ranked from one to five stars giving commercial buyers an easy to understand system showing which rams were better for their system.”

She said the Irish industry was using 2500 ewes in four commercial flocks as the basis for its central progeny test system, helping provide commercial performance feedback for breeding value calculations. “We’re also working with a further 20 flocks which feed back data for the performance of pedigree animals. This gives a broad depth of data we are able to include in breeding value calculations.”

And with widespread sharing of genetics between Irish breeders and others in the EU she said it was important to create links with those breeding populations to improve genetic selection. “Genomics is key for progress here,” she said.

Texel Sheep Society chief executive John Yates added that routine use of proven low tech was equally as important in making breeding progress as high tech.

“This includes wider use of weigh crates, along with the use of CT data, improved structures in the Texel breeding population, by using phenotyping farms and collection of new traits such as health and meat quality.”

Mr Yates said this had the potential to accelerate rates of gain in the industry and provide further benefits for the wider sheep industry.

“The breed continues to gain popularity due to its added value influence at all levels of the supply chain, with the Texel+ service launching next year further value will be created by embracing change and managing disruptive technologies, such as genomics in a positive and targeted approach,” he explained.

Texel research targets eating quality and health traits

Current research being undertaken by the Texel Sheep Society has the potential to deliver lamb with optimal intramuscular fat levels for eating quality as well as breeding sheep with improved functionality, according to SRUC researchers.

Neil Clelland told the Society’s iTexel Conference that recent sensory panel work, from Society led projects, had established that for the UK market a chemically assessed (using near infrared spectrometry) intramuscular fat content level of 4-5% was the optimal point.

“Previous work in Australia had found a 5% IMF level to be acceptable, so this work mirrors that pretty well,” he explained.

When working with CT scanning as Dr Clelland’s team had been in research for the Society, CT scanned IMF levels of more than 3% were found to deliver the type of eating experience consumers enjoy, he explained.

“Eating quality is vitally important as when consumers have a bad eating experience it can take up to three months for them to re-purchase red meat. IMF levels have a huge influence on sensory traits and measures of easting quality, such as tenderness, juiciness and flavour.”

Dr Clelland said being able to predict IMF and thus, potentially, eating quality, by CT scanning could be hugely significant in breeding sheep for better eating experience. It allows potential eating quality to be assessed in live animals, helping breeding programmes identify those breeding stock with better eating quality.”

Meanwhile, his colleague Jo Conington told delegates that work looking at mastitis in the breed had found a high correlation between sub clinical mastitis found using the California Milk Test (CMT), a simple scoring tool used routinely in dairy cows and lower lamb weights at eight weeks. “Ewes with mastitis reared 3.84kg less lambs at eight weeks of age than those without mastitis.

“At a liveweight price of £1.72/kg that’s the equivalent of £6.60/ewe, a significant impact across a flock,” she explained.

She added that somatic cell count as measured by CMT had shown a 23% heritability, giving good prospects to breed for better udder health. “It is important to recognise that historically narrow selection for production traits in other species has led to deterioration in health and fitness in more than 100 traits.

“Elite breeding flocks, such as pedigree Texel flocks produce offspring which are used widely in commercial flocks, having a big impact on the wider industry. Finding better genetics in these flocks can have a huge impact on the future of the industry,” added Dr Conington.

Additionally, Nicola Lambe, also of SRUC said there may be potential in future to select sheep which produce lower levels of methane as CT scanning work had shown a good correlation between reticulo rumen volume and methane emission levels.

“CT scanning has a huge potential to aid selection for a number of traits and should be a central part of the breeder’s tool box in future.”

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