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Code of practice for the international genetic evaluation of dairy bulls at the Interbull Centre¹

¹This document supersedes all aspects of the services provided by the Interbull Centre as described in the original service document of May 25, 1994, titled ”Establishment of a member-funded system for routine international genetic evaluation of dairy bulls at the INTERBULL Centre” and all its subsequent amendments.

1. INTRODUCTION

• The Interbull Centre, located at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Uppsala, Sweden, maintains a system for routine computation of international genetic and genomic evaluations of the major groups of dairy breeds and traits. The Interbull Centre receives its responsibilities and authority from the ICAR permanent subcommittee Interbull, as determined by the Letter of Agreement between ICAR and SLU and by the Terms of Reference and Rules of Procedure of the Interbull Sub-Committee. Additionally, the Interbull Centre holds the status of European Union Reference Laboratory for Zootechnics as defined by the Commission decision 96/463/EC, Council decision of the 23rd of July 1996. The services provided by the Interbull Centre aim at facilitating international bull selection and trading within and among the participating countries. Details on the specific services are given in this document. Definitions:

  • ICAR member – organization that has formally joined the International Committee for Animal Recording (ICAR) and complies with the ICAR statutes and is responsible for the payment of the membership fees.

  • Interbull subcommittee – permanent subcommittee of ICAR, responsible for coordinating the international genetic evaluation of dairy breeds as well as assisting participating organizations to improve national evaluation systems. The subcommittee is coordinated by a Steering Committee formed by representatives of the participating organizations.

  • Interbull Centre – section of the Department of Animal Breeding and Genetics of SLU which is the operational unit of Interbull, having received the formal mandate to provide services on behalf of ICAR.

Interbull customer – organization that signs service contracts with the Interbull Centre and is held responsible for the payment of the respective service fees. The Interbull customer may be an ICAR member or act in agreement with the ICAR member representing its country/region.

National genetic evaluation centre (NGEC) – organization that performs regularly the national evaluations and holds the expertise in dairy genetics and breeding.