European Brown Swiss Conference 14.-16. October 2010

European Brown Swiss Conference attended more then 200 participants from 11 countries. There were 20 papers presented on the Conference with main topics: competitive position of the breed, the role of Brown Swiss in multi purpose agriculture and genetics along with presentations of different breeding and selection achievements in some countries. Breeders presented some experiences with Brown cattle and there visions for the future.

The Conference gave special attention to some characteristics that were pushed aside in the past, because of the attention on increasing milkness. Those characteristics were food utilization, longevity, reproduction ability and others. All of these characteristics may affect food safety and environmental protection. Consequently, these characteristics create social acceptability of cattle production, which is in recent times often a subject of criticism, especially when people connect cattle breeding with greenhouse gas emissions. These characteristics are also very important because of the competitive position of the Brown Swiss breed. There are times of sharpened economical conditions. It is more or less clear that competitiveness can not be built only on milkness and that all relevant traits have to be taken into account. The goal of these efforts is not only to increase the output but also to minimize the costs of production by the means of reducing inputs.

Most of the Conference presentations on the field of genetics were related to genomic selection. New results from Intergenomics project showed that methodology for genomic evaluation of Brown Swiss was developed. The routine evaluation of breeding values on the basis of genomic information can be expected in near future in the frame of the Interbull. In some countries the genomic information has already been introduced into selection work. The first results are promising, maybe even better that someone could expect few years ago. Several authors stressed that genomic selection needs international cooperation, exchange of knowledge and exchange of information to be alive in practice. The conclusion of one of the authors was: “If we want to go far, let's go together”.

Some of the countries that are not members of European Brown Cattle Federation presented the situation of the breed in their countries. We were acquainted with situation in United Kingdom, where the population of Brown cattle represents less than 1% of total cattle population, with the situation in Croatia, where the Brown cattle represent about 3% of total population, as well as with the situation in Montenegro where Brown cattle is the main breed. We believe that also the information that these countries gave us will have a positive effect in connecting the European breeders in the future.

Beside the European Brown Swiss Conference there was also National and International exhibition of Brown Swiss cattle. There were 116 animals from Slovenia that participated on the exhibition, divided in 12 groups and 10 animals from Austria, Italy, Germany and Switzerland.

After the conference there was a meeting of Intergenomics project for Brown cattle and Committee of European Brown Swiss Federation. For the first time the meeting was attended by a guest from Great Britain that wants to become a member of European Brown Swiss Federation.