News

The 2025 British Cattle Breeders Conference will explore how breeding can meet rising food demand while cutting methane emissions, with farmers and academics gathering in Telford next January.

Andy King reflects on being elected chairman for 2024-25, building on a successful conference year, and sets out his ambitions for breeding, technology and diversity in the industry.

Dr Tianhai Yan has received the 2024 Sir John Hammond Award from BSAS and BCBC, recognising exceptional contributions to animal science research in Belfast and beyond.

British Limousin Society chief executive Alice Swift told the BCBC conference that government policy should reward outcomes, not breed, and urged farmers to use data to cut emissions.

Holstein UK president Andrew Jones presented Mary Mead of the Lakemead herd with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the BCBC conference dinner, marking 60 years in British Friesians.

Father and son Rowan and Greg Pickstock of Brongain Farms are using data and genetics to target net zero beef from grass, aiming for carbon neutrality on their farm by 2030.

A leading agricultural professor told the BCBC conference that farmers must urgently measure, monitor and reduce gross farm emissions to help the UK meet its net zero goals.

Dairy farmer Rory Christie has helped develop the first crossbreeding index for the Fast Breeders Project, led by geneticist Mike Coffey, across four spring-calving grazing herds.

Aberdeenshire farmer Duncan Morrison explains how a simple, low-cost grass-based system helped him grow his suckler enterprise from 226 to 650 acres since taking on his tenancy in 2016.

Professor Alice Stanton told the BCBC conference that red meat and dairy are vital for human health, and challenged publications advocating dramatic cuts to animal-sourced foods.

Organic dairy farmer Wil Armitage says genetics is a key part of a healthy business alongside cow and soil health, people and profit, across his 900-cow, three-farm operation.

Over 250 years of breeding have made the red-coated, white-faced Hereford the world's most recognised beef breed, thriving from Scotland's highlands to Canada's prairies.