Pace of Genetic Improvement in Swine Production Expected to Accelerate

The Genetic Project Manager with PIC Canada expects the pace of genetic improvement within swine production to continue to accelerate over the next several years

by Bruce Cochrane – FarmScape Online

Daniel Godbout, the Genetic Project Manager with PIC Canada, told FarmScape Online there is lots of developments in the area of genomics.

“It’s about the sector getting together to capture that genetic improvement and deliver it to the slat level”

 

“Genomics is basically the branch of genetics that addresses the functionality, the structure of the genes and, at the end of the day, we can break down the genetic material into small pieces, so we are basically exploiting that information to make better genetic decisions and strengthen our genetic improvement,” Godbout said. “There’s numerous applications that are being developed to date and, with the new methodology, the cost of genotyping, the cost of measuring that on a per pig basis, has decreased sharply which allows us to use that new science to make better breeding decisions.”

The introduction of genomics has provided new opportunities to improve the productivity of breeding stock.

“As technology develops, genomics will probably provide new opportunities in terms of traits that could be selected,” he added. “We could expect the number of traits to continue to increase.”

He cited about 20 traits that PIC has in their breeding programs.

“We can expect the number of traits to increase which will provide added opportunity for improvement, and increase the expected genetic improvement that we can achieve over a period of time,” he said. “I would expect the genetic improvement to sharply accelerate over the next several years.”

According to Godbout, genetics can contribute to the bottom line success of producers. “But it’s about the sector getting together to capture that genetic improvement and deliver it to the slat level.”