MINUTES

APPROVAL OF PREVIOUS MINUTES

Funk moved with second from Hoff to approve the October 2, 2001 minutes as distributed. Motion passed unanimously.

DESIGNATED REPRESENTATIVES

Voting representatives for the various groups are as follows:

AI - Doug Blair, Denny Funk, Bill Ramsey

Dairy Record Providers - Paul Miller, Harold Borman and John Fiscalini

PDCA - David Kendall, Marlin Hoff and Tom Lawlor

INTRODUCTIONS

Everyone present at the meeting introduced themselves and indicated organization affiliation.

Chairman Miller made a few comments discussing changes taking place within the industry including fewer government regulations, fewer organizations and questioning whether making decisions in an informal manner is the best approach. He indicated that the bylaws and memorandum of understanding likely need to be reviewed. The current memorandum of understanding supercedes all old MOUs, so that relationships between organizations may need to be reviewed. He suggested the three objectives outlined in Article I of the bylaws should be reviewed to insure accuracy.

He suggested that many in the dairy industry see the Council as a final decision maker for a number of issues and this must be recognized by the members of the Council.

QCS REPORT

Michael Rector presented the Quality Certification Services report which included a table of the audit schedules for 2002 for the various areas audited.

AUDIT REVIEW COMMITTEE REPORT

Bill VerBoort gave the Audit Review Committee report. He reported that the Committee denied the FSAC recommendations to suspend the requirement that all electronic meters be checked for calibration on an annual basis until methods other than water tests can be developed. They recommended that the accuracy of meters must be verified whenever in doubt and at least once a year using an approved method. Further, fixed in-place electronic meters must have records of accuracy verification on file at the dairy and at the office of the DHIA service affiliate. Checks of meter performance and accuracy produced by the milking system software or by DHIA software can be used to verify the accuracy of these meters.

Funk moved with second from Borman to approve all changes that are recommended by the Committee to this point. Motion passed unanimously.

Borman moved with second from Fiscalini to accept the time table for handling the Advisory Committee recommendations so they can become effective the first of the following year. Motion passed unanimously.

UNIFORM OPERATING PROCEDURES

Miller reported that NDHIA approved at their annual meeting, revisions to the National Dairy Herd Improvement Program Uniform Operating Procedures. A copy was available for review by the Council.

It was questioned how the Uniform Operating Procedures apply to cooperators that are not members of the National DHIA. It was indicated that the Council uses these as a part of quality certification and that there is ample opportunity for input from other organizations who are not members of NDHIA.

VerBoort suggested that appendixes be made to the Uniform Operating Procedures that define things such as NDHIA tolerances, etc.

It was also reported that Bruce Dokkebakken of QCS, will be the new Chairman of the Audit Review Committee.

INCLUSION OF PERCENT SHIPPED IN NON-OS RECORDS

Kendall questioned why “percent shipped” was not included in non-owner/sampler records for genetic evaluations. It was indicated that originally owner/sampler records had more stringent standards than official supervised records. Kendall indicated that there are records not getting into the system, even though they have electronic daily weights.

It was subsequently moved by Kendall with second from Hoff to encourage USDA to develop methods to measure the quality of milk records with the goal of weighting these records more appropriately in genetic evaluation program. Motion passed unanimously.

PROCEDURES TO RELEASE GENETIC EVALUATIONS WHEN PROBLEMS OCCUR

Dr. Norman provided background on problems encountered for the February 2002 genetic evaluations. It was generally agreed that the Interbull Steering Committee needs to review the Interbull data to insure correctness before it is released to the participating genetic evaluation agencies. Genetic evaluation units would then be under fewer constraints to meet release and publication deadlines. There was consensus that there should be a subcommittee of the Steering Committee to review the correctness of Interbull data.

As far as the in-country review of evaluations, it was suggested that Dr. Powell has a small advisory group he works with on these problems. If there is someone who wants to be on this list, they should contact Dr. Powell.

FREQUENCY OF EVALUATIONS

At the request of NAAB, Dr. Norman and his staff prepared a proposal to change the frequency of evaluations from four times per year to three times per year, plus three interim unofficial evaluations. PDCA indicated they did not have a problem with three official evaluations per year, but they were concerned about interim evaluations and the effect on cow evaluations. It was expressed that if we did go to three official, three unofficial evaluations, that within three years we would have six unofficial evaluations.

It was moved by Blair with second from Funk that NAAB proposes there be official evaluations released three times per year; unofficial interim evaluations would be calculated between each official evaluation for bulls with a significant increase in information and criteria to determine which bulls would be evaluated in the interim evaluations will be determined after further consultation with USDA-AIPL. The motion was defeated five to four.

PATENT ISSUES

It was reported that Canada should know by the end of March the results of their challenge of the test day patent in Canada. The EU patent will be issued shortly, if it hasn’t been already. It was indicated that there is consideration in Europe of challenging the patent. Germany requested ICAR to help fund its challenge. A reply from Dr. Paul Miller indicated support for this project for ICAR so long as they support any challenges in countries other than just the EU.

It was reported that Dairy One who has a license to the patent is moving along very slowly with regard to its use and implementation.

At the last meeting it was recommended that members of the Council not send data to Cornell because of issues with the test day patent. Reports from the DRPCs present suggests there is very little information going to Cornell and if it is going, it is being done on a request basis only.

AIPL FUNDING

In the government’s FY02 budget, the Council was successful on getting an additional $600,000 for the AIPL budget. However in the President’s FY03 budget, all items that were included in FY02 the budget called add-ons were dropped. Doak reported that he and Miller and Meyer would be going to Washington in April to work with Congressional leaders to reinstate the funding for AIPL.

AIPL REPORT

Dr. Norman indicated that AIPL has a new Website and was seeking comments concerning the new look for the Website. A number of abstracts submitted by AIPL staff were available for the Council’s review.

BROWN SWISS PTI FORMULA

Materials were available for the Council’s review concerning a change in the PTI formula for the Brown Swiss Association which was implemented in the February 2002 genetic evaluations.

ANIMAL MODEL REVIEW

A letter from Linda Hordorff was distributed to the Council for their review. She indicated that the Board of Directors of HAUSA recommended that the industry in cooperation with the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding review the current animal model. Following discussion, it was agreed that this is an appropriate request and Dr. Norman will follow up.

AMERICAN ID

Kendall reported that Dr. John Weimer of USDA-APHIS stated the proposed rule for the animal identification number should be published shortly with comments due by October/November.

ELECTION OF OFFICERS AND DIRECTORS

As this is the annual meeting for the Council, the following voting directors were elected by the respective groups:

Dairy Record Providers - John Miscalling, Paul Miller, Harlan Barman

AI - Doug Blair, Denny Funk, John Ramsey

PDCA - John Meyer, Marlin Hoff, Dave Kendall

The Council bylaws allow that the Chairmanship for the Council rotates between the three groups. PDCA has responsibility for Chairmanship for this next year. John Meyer will serve as Chairman of the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding.

NEXT MEETING

The next meeting of the Council will be either October 29 or 30 with the location to be announced. There was consensus to start the meeting at 8:00 a.m. and conclude by 1:00 p.m. that same day.

ADJOURNMENT

With no further business to come before the meeting, the meeting was adjourned.

Respectfully submitted:

_______________________________________

Dr. Gordon A. Doak, Ph.D.

Recording Secretary

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