Group breeding schemes in Australia and New Zealand

Abstract

A group breeding scheme (GBS) consists of a group of farmers who agree to co-operate in the breeding of their own sires. (Peart, 1976). Farmers may co-operate in livestock breeding in a number of ways, through artificial insemination co-operatives, syndicated ownership of sires, performance recording groups and so on (Powell, et al., forthcoming). GBS's involve the highest level of co-operation where female breeding stock, capital, land and management resources are all co-ordinated in a co-operative effort to produce sires for the use of the individual farmers involved.