Kent Anderson, Director of Global Beef Genetics with Zoetis, and Darrell Stevenson, Stevenson Angus Ranch, Montana, US and treasurer of the American Angus Association

THE links between how history has created where we started, how technology has driven where the beef industry is currently at, and how genetic opportunity will drive where the industry goes next was explored during the World Angus Forum in Tamworth on the weekend.

Closing the gap between the past and the future and incorporating all components of the beef industry to bring data and selection tools to the fore to create a better beef industry had the crowd captivated.

Dr Kent Anderson, Director of Global Beef Genetics, Technical services with Zoetis, and Darrell Stevenson, Stevenson Angus Ranch, Montana, US and treasurer of the American Angus Association, unpacked how the US beef industry is changing through innovation and technologies such as genomics.

Mr Stevenson said 30 years ago, the US beef industry saw 35 percent of the beef herd as black, while in 2025 that number had shifted to 72pc. He put that down to the enhancements and partnerships with Zoetis that have helped the industry to get there through genetic improvements.

Mr Stevenson and his family have been breeding cattle in Montana since their foundations in 1880s, now selling ten percent of the 14,000 bulls sold in the State of Montana each year.

He said that historically, the US had collected a lot of seedstock genetic data but very little from the commercial world, and the move towards linking bulls with heifer data and the calves produced was the future for the US beef industry.

Linking genetic data from sire lines also has allowed the US to compare and create programs to select feeder cattle to become price makers, instead of price takers.

The progeny equivalence program has delivered a massive boost to the accuracies and genetic advanced EPDs (the equivalent of Australia’s EBVs).

Dr Anderson said up until the point when the program was introduced and validity was added to the EPDs through greater accuracy, the uptake had been slow, but this change had accelerated the commercial producers to get on board and now genomic data collection from the whole beef industry was nearly ‘line ball’ with that of the seedstock industry.

Mr Stevenson said the use of genomic data collection has seen the US beef herd advance more in five years than it had in the 20 prior.

“Even though we are at the lowest the US beef herd has been in history, in 2024 we produced more kilograms of beef than we ever have before, with fewer cows,” he said.

“It is critical that we rebuild over the next couple of years and heifer selection is going to be paramount.”

“Through the GeneMax program, which is very similar to the heifer select program run by Angus Australia, it will give us an incredible opportunity to genomically identify the better heifers in our herds, which will help us bounce back quicker,” he said.

Dr Anderson said the Genemax program had taken the guesswork out of the selection process on heifers when rebuilding and the key elements were the indexes to help drive selection decisions.

“We need to use the maternal $Index to select our breeding herds, but be mindful to keep in mind the $Beef Index for cattle that need to be able to enter the feeder market and produce an optimum female that hits the optimum indexes for the combined $Index to breed an animal and breeding herd that can produce phenotypically outstanding females that have the capacity to produce calves for the feeder industry.”

Dr Anderson said the GeneMax program had 1.9 million pieces of data backing up the program to create traits that are highly predictable to help beef producers make better-informed decisions.

Matching cattle with environments

Mr Stevenson said producers needed to use synergised data that is collected from bulls and matched with heifers to breed a superior animal that takes the industry forward.

“The biggest asset of the Angus herd in the US is that it has diversity, which allows us to match cattle to our environments better, right across America. It allows us to capitalise on selecting cattle that suit our operations and location.”

Dr Anderson said by using the Genemax program, it had been simulated that through selection, on average, profitability could be increased by $32 per calf and a return on investment of $3.40 for every one dollar spent.

Mr Stevenson as a seedstock producer, the $27 test per animal was the single best management decision a cattle breeder could make that will have the greatest impact on their beef herd.

When Angus ain’t Angus

When questioned on the feeder cattle market in the US, Mr Stevenson said the biggest challenge for feedyards was sorting the “black cattle”, to see which are actually Angus infused.

USDA Choice and Prime grades are what producers are striving to reach, and in the last four quarters, for the first time in history, ranchers had produced more USDA Prime eligible cattle than the Select product, showing they were producing better beef with more marbling.

Mr Stevenson said the future was in partnerships and sharing data and creating bigger gene pools to create more accurate data.

The American Angus Association had formed a partnership with the Canadian and Australian Angus associations, he said.

“It is so critical to put us all on the same baseline from proven sire lines that we are all using, to be able to better predict what we need to breed.”

“With our current state of play, having to produce more beef with less cattle, we will need to utilise these base lines of genotype and phenotype to drive this,” he said.

Mr Stevenson said the US Angus industry was excited, with the release of new traits as of May 23 to be observed and selection indexes for:

• Cow functional longevity
• Teat Size
• Udder Suspension.

“These are another tool for ranchers to make better selection as we look to rebuild the beef herd in the US,” he said.

Mr Stevenson said through technology and genomic advancement, the US industry had been able to connect people to bring the whole industry together to produce a better beef product, and industry.

Angus on dairy – The unexpected growth

The link to economically relevant traits in the US Angus industry has created an unexpected growth opportunity in the US beef sector that is allowing more beef than ever to be produced from a declining beef herd.

The dairy industry in the US has become the biggest ally of the nation’s beef industry, as it looks for ways to become more profitable.

Mr Stevenson said five years ago a dairy calf at 24 hours old was worth nothing and was a burden to the producer.

The growth in genomic advancement in Angus cattle has opened up new doors for this sector, with the owners of 9.4 million dairy cows looking to join a minimum of 70pc of their cows to Angus beef sires.

“Over the last five years, we now see an Angus x Holstein calf at 24 hours of age worth $1000, making that calf a very profitable part of that enterprise,” he said.

Mr Stevenson said specialists are now saying that those calves at just 24 hours old, make more profit than what the actual lactating cow makes in her lifetime.

“It is another example, where our journey of Angus genetic improvement has benefited another sector of the agricultural industry.”

“The fact that these calves are now welcomed into the industry and feed yards, continues to help us produce the beef that is required, while our beef herd hits an all-time low for numbers,” he said.

Mr Stevenson was questioned on the end point of these calves and he replied that 100 percent of the beef on dairy calves are terminal and will go to slaughter and not be retained in beef herds.

• More reports from the World Angus Forum’s Tamworth leg later today, and the upcoming Brisbane Congress later this week.