Founded in 2010, the National Beef Cattle Genetic Evaluation Center was commissioned by the National Animal Husbandry Station and undertaken by the Cattle Genetics and Breeding Innovation Team of the `Institute of Animal Science, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences`, Currently, the center has a professional team of six staff members, including two researchers, two assistant researchers, and two research assistants. Equipped with dedicated computer rooms housing three database servers and one web server, the center has independently built the National Beef Cattle Genetic Evaluation Center Breeding Data Network Platform (https://www.ngecbc.org.cn/web/index). It has formed an integrated management system covering the collection, transmission, processing, analysis, storage and comprehensive application of beef cattle genetic evaluation data.
As a national public welfare scientific and technological innovation and service institution, the center is specially established to support national beef cattle breed registration, production performance data collection, and genetic evaluation of breeding cattle. The construction and operation of its data collection and processing system are implemented in strict accordance with the National Beef Cattle Genetic Improvement Plan (2011–2025). Its core business scope includes selecting national core beef cattle breeding farms, organizing breeding cattle registration, establishing a systematic performance measurement and genetic evaluation system for breeding cattle, conducting genetic exchange and progeny testing, and optimizing the construction of breeding bull stations and artificial insemination systems.
By the end of 2020, the center’s database had accumulated more than 390,000 valid records covering 35,101 cattle of 38 beef cattle breeds from 43 breeding bull stations and 42 national core beef cattle breeding farms. To guarantee the authenticity and credibility of data, professional staff of the center conduct annual on-site verification at all affiliated breeding bull stations and core breeding farms. Meanwhile, to promote the popularization and application of beef cattle performance measurement technologies, the center holds annual national training courses on production performance measurement for beef breeding bulls. Adopting a combined teaching model of theoretical lectures and on-site practical operation, the center has organized more than ten training sessions so far, with a total of 2,500 professional trainees.
To fully implement the National Beef Cattle Genetic Improvement Plan (2011–2025), publicize and promote excellent breeding bulls, and drive the genetic improvement of domestic beef cattle herds, the center has carried out annual national genetic evaluation of beef breeding bulls since 2010. It has independently established two core evaluation indices for Chinese beef cattle: the Chinese Beef Index (CBI) and Genomic Chinese Beef Index (GCBI).
For instance, the 2020 Genetic Evaluation Summary of Beef and Dual-purpose Breeding Bulls in China released the genetic evaluation results of 2,569 breeding bulls covering 30 beef and dual-purpose breeds from 32 national breeding bull stations. For the first time, the summary published the progeny testing results of 80 Simmental breeding bulls and the genomic evaluation results of 366 Simmental cattle. During 2012 to 2015, the Ministry of Agriculture launched the central financial beef cattle improved variety subsidy program. Based on the center’s genetic evaluation results, a total of 3,184 high-quality breeding bulls were selected into the subsidy list.
These systematic efforts have fundamentally transformed the previous phenotype-based single selection mode of domestic beef cattle breeding, making China’s beef cattle breeding work more scientific and standardized. The center’s work has effectively improved the breeding and supply capacity of core beef cattle herds, accelerated the breeding process of specialized new beef cattle breeds (lines) adapted to China’s breeding conditions, and greatly alleviated the shortage of high-quality breeding cattle in the domestic market.
