FUTURE CHALLENGES OF DAIRY-CATTLE BREEDING

The challenges of dairy cattle breeding at the end of the 20th century result from changing market requirements, agro-political frame condit ions and new breeding techniques. The milk market is characterized by continuation of the milk quota system, connected with downward interve ntion prices for milk fat. The beef market is burdened by a serious su rplus production, partly caused by lower per-capita-consumption. There fore beef production in dairy breeds becomes relatively less important . Under the given frame conditions management components of milk produ ction get a heavier weight, e. g. roughage quality, cost of machinery and health status of the herd. Due to the fat correction in the quota- system fat content and fat yield became insignificant, selection shoul d be directed toward protein yield only. New breeding methods aim at i mprovement of genetic evaluation, e. g. by regarding heterogeneous wit hin herd variances and test stations for donor cows, at higher selecti on intensity by embryo transfer and shortening the generation interval by MOET programmes. Standardization of variances seems meaningful onl y as far as heterogenity is not random. Wether testing on stations and nucleus herds increase genetic progress can not yet be answered. It i s also questionable wether the existing MOET-programmes can verify the theoretical assumptions.