In the far southwest corner of Nebraska, an important chapter in the beef industry’s story is being written.

Near Haigler, Blackshirt Feeders is expanding to a capacity of 200,000 head, making it one of North America’s largest and most state-of-the-art feedyards. Most of the cattle it feeds are beef-on-dairy crosses.

The High Plains are no stranger to innovation.

In the mid-20th century, cattle feeders like W.D. Farr, Kenny Monfort and Paul Engler helped reshape American beef production. They brought together feed, cattle, markets and, perhaps most importantly, capital to build businesses on a scale the industry had not seen.

Those fundamentals still matter. But today’s innovators—including Kee Jim at Blackshirt and many others like him across the country—are building another asset: mountains of data.

To them, a feedyard represents much more than a place to finish cattle. It can also be a place to connect an animal’s genetics with its health, feed requirements, growth and carcass value.

At the scale these businesses operate, those records are becoming a powerful resource.

Much of that information is privately held.

The beef industry has spent decades improving its ability to measure genetic differences among cattle. Increasingly, the question is who will control the commercial records that make those measurements more useful.

Beef-on-dairy is accelerating that change. More closely connected supply chains create opportunities to follow cattle from breeding through harvest, linking genetic decisions with the results that determine profitability.

That could produce better cattle and better selection tools. It could also concentrate information—and influence—in fewer hands.

Will beef producers retain the ability to compare genetics and move among suppliers? Or will access to the best information increasingly depend on doing business within a particular company’s system?

Dairy and swine offer two different examples.

In swine, a relatively small number of genetics companies operate largely proprietary breeding and evaluation systems. Commercial producers generally cannot compare those companies’ animals through a common, industry-wide genetic evaluation. The information that makes each system valuable also makes it difficult to move outside it.

Dairy developed a different structure. Through the Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding, working with USDA and industry partners, participating organizations contribute information to a shared evaluation system. Data access is governed by rules; it is not simply open to anyone. But competing genetics suppliers operate with a common basis for comparing animals.

That distinction matters. Dairy producers can change suppliers without giving up a common language for evaluating genetic merit.

Neither industry provides a perfect blueprint for beef. But both illustrate how the organization of data can shape the choices available to producers.

Beef is still determining its direction.

Zoetis, Neogen, STgenetics, ABS and other companies are building or participating in systems that connect genetics with commercial outcomes. Seedstock businesses and integrated supply chains are making similar investments.

Their databases can capture information that breed associations have historically struggled to obtain, particularly records from crossbred cattle and animals followed through harvest.

There is nothing inherently wrong with those investments. The beef industry needs innovation and progress. Companies collecting useful information should be able to build businesses around it.

The concern is what happens if the most useful evaluations become available only through proprietary systems. Producers could find themselves choosing a package of genetics, data services and market access rather than selecting among independently comparable options.

For breed associations, the implications are substantial.

At the center of it all is Angus, which is by far the dominant breed in the beef on dairy sector.

In this new world of proprietary data, however, Angus genetics could remain dominant while the American Angus Association and its subsidiary, Angus Genetics Inc., become less influential in defining and explaining their value. The breed’s success does not automatically guarantee the Association’s continued relevance.

Crossbred cattle make the challenge more complicated.

Commercial producers routinely use genetics from more than one breed. They need tools that account for those cattle and help compare breeding options. AAA has produced a valuable within-breed evaluation. The broader challenge is how to incorporate commercial and crossbred information while helping producers compare options beyond the registered Angus population.

Australia is working through this issue. Meat & Livestock Australia’s efforts to advance multi-breed evaluation have prompted discussion about both the science and the business arrangements surrounding it.

Angus Australia has raised concerns about whether a new commercial evaluation model could market high-accuracy breeding values for unregistered or composite cattle using information built through registered breeders’ investment, without equivalent contributions. Its concern is how that information might be commercialized and the consequences for registered seedstock producers.

That is a legitimate concern. Breeders supplied the cattle, collected the records and paid for the systems that made those records useful.

Commercial cattle already benefit from that investment. Producers use registered Angus bulls, and tools such as GeneMax Advantage provide genetic predictions for commercial Angus females. The question is how future evaluation models will build on those benefits while recognizing the contributions that support them.

But protecting that investment and serving the commercial industry cannot be treated as competing objectives indefinitely. The challenge is to build arrangements that do both.

AGI’s leadership faces decisions that could influence the industry well beyond the registered Angus herd.

Last June, AGI approved a three-year strategic plan. The Association’s board recap connected its strategic discussions to the growth of private databases and proprietary genetic evaluations.

AGI leadership says those developments informed the planning process but were not its primary driver. The plan builds on work underway for several years, including a revalidation of AGI’s strategic intent in late 2022. Leadership describes commercial data collection as a way to measure Angus performance across different environments and identify unintended consequences of selection as genetic progress accelerates.

We requested a copy of the plan. AGI leadership says information about its strategic direction will be shared with members through the Angus Journal, convention presentations and other Angus Media outlets. Its responses have provided additional explanation, but we have not received the full document.

That document most certainly will be important to the industry’s future. Will AGI bring more commercial records into its evaluations? What partnerships will it pursue? How will it protect the investment of registered breeders while developing tools useful to producers working with crossbred cattle?

The plan could help explain how AGI intends to turn those competing needs into a workable business strategy. Its decisions could influence where commercial data goes, who benefits from it and whether producers retain a common basis for comparing genetics.

Not every prospective partnership or business detail needs to be public. But members and potential collaborators would benefit from understanding the priorities, commitments and measures of progress guiding the work.

In written responses to our questions, AGI leadership described beef-on-dairy as an established part of beef production. AGI introduced its Angus-on-Holstein and Angus-on-Jersey indexes, $AxH and $AxJ, in 2020, drawing on stakeholder input, published research and the Association’s database.

Those were meaningful steps. AGI leadership acknowledged that additional performance records from beef-on-dairy cattle would help strengthen the estimates and said it welcomes collaboration with beef-on-dairy systems.

AGI leadership clarified that the American Angus Association sets policy for its genetic evaluation; AGI does not set policy for its parent organization. Leadership said the Association does not currently have a policy specifically addressing that use of crossbred beef or beef-on-dairy records, and incorporating them would require appropriate modeling. Commercial information, particularly carcass data, already contributes to its work.

AGI’s interest extends beyond beef-on-dairy. AGI leadership identified opportunities to connect genetics with commercial performance throughout conventional beef production, capturing information closer to where value is realized.

That is encouraging. It also brings the discussion to the practical question: how does willingness to accept data become a system that producers and commercial partners routinely use?

We believe three areas deserve attention.

First, the terms need to be clear.

Who owns a record? Who can use it? Can it be shared with another organization? What happens if a producer changes suppliers? How is the person contributing the information compensated or otherwise rewarded?

Producers should not need to negotiate those questions from scratch every time they participate in a project. Standard agreements could reduce uncertainty while protecting individual operations and the investments of participating businesses.

AAA and AGI could play an important role in developing those arrangements. Their value would come from being a trusted place to contribute information and receive useful results.

Second, collecting and submitting records must fit the way producers work.

Dairy’s experience shows the importance of connecting routine herd management with genetic evaluation. Information collected to manage cattle becomes more valuable when it can also improve breeding decisions.

Beef presents different challenges. Cattle move among owners, records are collected in different systems, and the person paying to collect information may not be the person who benefits from it.

Those problems require practical solutions: compatible software, dependable identification and a clear reason for each participant to contribute. Asking producers to submit more data will accomplish little if doing so adds work without delivering something useful in return.

Third, the effort must stay focused on traits that affect commercial profitability.

Fertility is an obvious example. So are longevity, health, feed requirements and performance through harvest. Better information should help producers understand both an animal’s strengths and the costs associated with them.

Dairy’s investment in fertility evaluations illustrates what sustained attention and large commercial datasets can contribute. Beef has an opportunity to make similar progress, but doing so requires records from cattle working under commercial conditions.

Breed associations and private enterprise both have important roles, and partnerships may offer the best way forward.

Sharing data need not mean giving away every record or abandoning the value of registered genetics. It requires agreements that make participation worthwhile and preserve meaningful choices for producers.

AAA and AGI bring substantial assets to that work: a large Angus population, extensive pedigree and genomic information, scientific expertise and established relationships with breeders.

The question is how those strengths will be used as more information is collected outside the registered herd by innovative private endeavors like Blackshirt Feeders and others.

AGI provides genetic evaluation and research and development services. Decisions about deploying the Association’s weekly genetic evaluation rest with its member-elected Board of Directors. Together, AAA and AGI could explain how their willingness to work with commercial and beef-on-dairy records becomes partnerships, systems and incentives that producers routinely use.

The industry will continue collecting data either way.

The question is whether AAA and AGI can make contributing to a shared evaluation more valuable than keeping that information behind private walls. Members—and the commercial producers who depend on Angus genetics—have a substantial stake in the answer.

Editor’s note: Agree or disagree? We invite your thoughts on our analysis – and the future implications of beef on dairy. Please send them to [email protected].

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