Agriculture Webinar | Use of Genetics and Genomics to Improve the Productivity and Profitability of Smallholder Livestock Farmers

Faculty of Science, Agriculture, Business and Law, University of New England, Armidale, Australia;
Professor Heather Burrow is a quantitative geneticist and business professional by training, with ~40 years of experience in beef cattle breeding, particularly for harsh tropical production environments. As the CEO of the Cooperative Research Centre for Beef Genetic Technologies (Beef CRC) from 2005 to 2012, she was immensely privileged to work directly with the CRC’s Chief Scientist, Professor Mike Goddard, and a former Beef CRC PhD student, Professor Ben Hayes, to initiate and foster critical research collaborations with the Dairy Futures CRC in Australia and international partners including the US Meat Animal Research Center (US-MARC) and universities across the USA and Canada. Those collaborations were critical to the evaluation and subsequent proof of the effectiveness of genomic selection in beef and dairy cattle. Since the successful completion of the Beef CRC in 2012, Professor Burrow has led several research-for-development projects funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research (ACIAR) and the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) in southern Africa and Indonesia. She has also collaborated with multi-organisational, multi-national research programs aimed at developing livestock breeding programs in low-middle income countries and also contributed to several international advisory committees including the CGIAR’s livestock Independent Steering Committee and the Centre for Tropical Livestock Genetics and Health.

University of Melbourne, and Agriculture Victoria, Australia;
Prof. Michael Goddard is a quantitative geneticist who has spent his career teaching and conducting research on the genetic improvement of livestock. He graduated in Veterinary Science with a PhD from the University of Melbourne before taking positions at James Cook University in Townsville, Australia; Agriculture Victoria in Melbourne; the University of New England in Armidale; and the University of Melbourne. His research covered many aspects of genetic improvement in dairy and beef cattle and sheep. He was one of the authors of the first paper to describe genomic selection, which is now widely practiced in livestock and crops. His contribution has been recognized by fellowship of the Australian Academy of Science and the Royal Society of London and the Carty Award from the USA Academy of Science. He continues to conduct research on the use of genomic data in livestock and human genetics.