Costs of and returns from performance recording in beef and sheep studs

Genetic improvement of the Australian beef herd and sheep flock depends heavily on investment by stud producers in performance recording. A survey was conducted to estimate levels of investment and profitability in beef and sheep studs in Australia, and to assess whether these differed between studs using BREEDPLAN or Sheep Genetics and those not. A voluntary survey was developed and invitation to participate widely circulated. The participation rate was low, but participants included a sample of the largest users of BREEDPLAN and Sheep Genetics. Results suggest that BREEDPLAN and Sheep Genetics users have larger businesses in both scale and level of investment, and those businesses are more profitable, than non-users. Knowledge of operating margins and return on investment is valuable in understanding seedstock sector capacity to increase investment, particularly in hard-to-measure traits and genotyping. On the basis of the results here, such capacity appears likely to be constrained. Obtaining more comprehensive survey results would be valuable, but it is not obvious how to achieve that.