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APPENDIX VII - Guidelines for minimum requirements for advertising genetic merit of dairy animals

The Interbull Steering Committee approved on April 22, 2013, the following guidelines, as minimum requirements:

These Interbull guidelines are dedicated to the organizations responsible for the computation and for the publication of national genetic evaluations, referred to as National Genetic Evaluation Units.

GENERAL PRINCIPLE: Interbull does not publish results of the international genetic and/or genomic evaluations. Every participating organization is responsible for publishing the Interbull genetic merit estimates in its own national scale. National Genetic Evaluation Units are encouraged to establish and enforce codes of ethics for the resulting use of their genetic evaluations.

Publications containing genetic evaluations by a National Genetic Evaluation Unit or by an organization using the evaluations provided by any Unit shall include at least the following information: • Source of evaluation (for example INTERBULL, ANAFI, CONAFE, CDN, VIT) • Country of scale, if appropriate. • Date of evaluation • Genetic base definition • Evaluation expression: EBV or PTA • Evaluation units: e.g. kg or lbs. • Reliability • Inclusion of genomic information (or not)

Those evaluations may be national, Interbull or converted evaluations. Each National Genetic Evaluation Unit (country) is to have only one scale (evaluation expression and units) for each evaluated trait. The scale can be manipulated in no case, such as presentation of US evaluations as EBV, instead of PTA as officially used, or values normally expressed as EBV in kg shown as EBV in lbs.

Each National Genetic Evaluation Unit establishes the publication rules for the genetic merit values estimated in its own national system of evaluation.

By no later than December 2013, each National Genetic Evaluation Unit commits itself to make publicly available the genetic merits (outputs from MACE, GMACE or Intergenomics) calculated by Interbull on its own scale for a given bull-trait, when: • The bull has no published national EBV or GEBV on this trait in the importing country, • The bull has an official evaluation in at least one other country for the same trait, • The bull is evaluated by Interbull on this trait, and • The bull is an AI bull (officially published).

All the published genetic merits of AI bulls are available without any restriction of access on the web site of the National Genetic Evaluation Unit. The link to this web site must be indicated on the Interbull web site. If top lists edited by the National Genetic Evaluation Unit mention only bulls meeting some requirements other than a minimum genetic level, for instance if a minimum level of reliability is required, then a second list must be available on the same website, with all the published genetic merits that do not meet this requirement, and this second list must be freely consulted. The publication criteria applied has to be transparent and cannot be more restrictive for foreign animals than it is for domestic animals.

This code is focused on the advertising of animals, individually or in lists. It does not preclude the presentation of results on other scales as may be appropriate and necessary for scientific papers and similar reports, which are not distributed for general consumption or for merchandising.