EnviroBeef

EnviroBeef can be used to measure the genetic potential of an animal to reduce the carbon footprint of suckler beef through improved herd efficiency.

It can be used for bulls, cows, and growing and store cattle, provided we have enough data.

Results from the National Beef Evaluations (NBEs) are combined into a single measure that enables you to benchmark animals across all beef breeds.

Why should I use EnviroBeef?

Using EnviroBeef will help you improve:

• Profitability
• Animal health and welfare
• The carbon footprint of beef

The suckler industry is under pressure to reduce emissions. Unlike other approaches, which may have ongoing costs to farmers, using existing data to breed a more efficient herd is a win-win situation – a more efficient herd will be more profitable and have a lower carbon footprint.

Animals with genetics to live long and healthy lives, measured by productive lifespan and calf survival, score well in EnviroBeef. This means that using EnviroBeef scores will also have a positive impact on the health and welfare of your suckler cattle, which is important to the consumer.

Will EnviroBeef work for me?

If you’re a suckler farmer, EnviroBeef is for you.

Performance is made up of two things: genetics and how those genetics respond to the environment the animal is in.

Our evaluations split out the genetic part of performance and allow you to focus on that, rather than performance as a whole, which varies across system.

This means that whether you are feeding intensively indoors or have an extensive hill farm, EnviroBeef is relevant to you.

For extensive grazing systems, the EnviroBeef score can be particularly useful, enabling you to breed for performance improvements that lead to a reduced environmental impact without driving systems change.

Extensive grazing

Beef farmers are often told that reducing age at slaughter is a great way to reduce emissions and improve farm profitability. However, this can be challenging if your cattle are already doing an important job of grazing to improve biodiversity.

The quickest way to achieve target slaughter age is to change the farming system, particularly through additional feed. However, this may have a negative impact on biodiversity.

Instead, you could use data to breed more efficient cattle, enabling slaughter age to be reduced in extensive systems so that cattle can continue to do their important job for biodiversity.

How is EnviroBeef different to other genetics tools?

Genetic evaluations for beef cattle are available in many different places, including breeding companies, breed societies and the National Beef Evaluations (NBEs). Each of these tools use data from different sources, which make them applicable to different situations. EnviroBeef is part of the NBEs.

Breeding company evaluations use data from dairy beef, meaning they are helpful for dairy farmers selecting a beef bull.

Breed society evaluations use data collected by pedigree breeders. This creates high accuracy results for pedigree animals but doesn’t allow for comparison between breeds.

The NBEs use national data, including birth, death and calving data from the British Cattle Movement Service (BCMS) and carcase data from abattoirs.

We build a family tree for animals using BCMS dam and sire data, alongside data from breed societies and milk recording organisations.

This makes NBEs useful across a wide range of beef systems and breeds, including crossbred animals.

How do I access EnviroBeef?

EnviroBeef scores can be found alongside National Beef Evaluation results.

You can search using ear tag numbers and pedigree names.

When using ear tag numbers, remove all spaces and punctuation, e.g. UK111111200002

Note: You may find the website is slow to load the results; please stay on the page while the data is populated.

You can also access the NBE results from breed society databases.

What does an EnviroBeef score mean?

A score of -10% indicates that the animal has the genetic potential to reduce the carbon footprint by 10% compared with the GB average.

The level of certainty of the EnviroBeef score is measured by its accuracy; this is displayed next to the score. The level of accuracy is shown as a value between 0% and 100%. A score of 100% would mean that even with more data, we do not expect the score to change.

You might see scores close to 100% with AI sires. Other animals will have lower levels of accuracy, meaning that their EnviroBeef score is as accurate as possible using the data available. As we receive more data, the score may change.

We publish all EnviroBeef scores with accuracies greater than 25%.

Importantly, any EnviroBeef score with an accuracy figure above 0% is better than a guess.

How can I use EnviroBeef?

Alongside other criteria, such as health and temperament, choose animals with the most negative EnviroBeef score. This could include:

• Choosing which bulls to use
• Choosing which cows to remove from the herd
• Choosing which heifers to keep as replacements

Currently, EnviroBeef does not use genomics or DNA test results; instead, we use animals’ family trees. This means that the results for younger animals are less accurate than those for older animals for which we have more data.

As a result, you may find EnviroBeef scores most useful when selecting which cows to keep or which cows to keep calves from, rather than when you are selecting a new young bull.

Why don’t my animals have EnviroBeef scores?

If you are searching for an ear tag, make sure that you have not included any spaces or punctuation (including / or -).

It may be that we do not have enough data to make an accurate assessment. We get new data regularly and publish updated results in April, August and December – your animal may appear in future results.

We rely on farmers including the sire details when registering calves on BCMS. If you do not include sire information, this will likely mean we do not have enough data to produce an EnviroBeef score. For more information, see our Shout about the sire campaign.

For small herds, it is more difficult to measure genetic potential because we need to compare how an animal performs against the performance of the group it is in. For small herds, there are not always enough animals in a group to do this. We hope that when we implement genomics, we will be better able to evaluate animals in small herds.

Note: EnviroBeef scores for pedigree Limousin animals will be available soon.

What is AHDB doing to improve EnviroBeef and NBEs?

We know that the tool has some limitations, particularly the speed of results and search options – we are developing a new website that will address these issues.

We also know that EnviroBeef would be much more useful if it included more accurate results for younger animals. We are, therefore, developing the tool so that DNA test results (genotypes) can be included.