Consultation will run for six weeks until November 12 and any submission becomes public information, MPI said.
The key issue is whether the regulated dataset remains well aligned with the dairy industry’s current and future animal evaluation needs.
MPI said there has been some concern expressed among dairy genetics companies about the management of herd improvement data.
The regulations are in the Dairy Industry Restructuring Act (DIRA) and the Dairy Industry (Herd Testing and NZ Dairy Core Database) Regulations.
Herd improvement covers dairy herd testing, herd recording, animal evaluation, artificial breeding and database services.
The attention paid to those matters over decades is considered by many experts to be the reason NZ farmers are among the most efficient and competitive dairy producers in the world, MPI said.
Dairy herd improvement also has the potential to contribute to environmental and animal health and welfare outcomes.
Genetic gains through animal evaluation in the dairy industry have been estimated to contribute $300 million a year to the economy.
DairyNZ has estimated that over a 10-year period genetic improvement could add $257,730 to the bottom line of an individual farmer with an average-sized dairy herd.
For over 100 years NZ dairy farmers have monitored their cows’ production and shared the resulting data, developing local then regional and now industry-wide datasets to support ongoing herd improvement.
The Dairy Industry-Good Animal Database, or DIGAD, is a repository that forms the basis for animal evaluation. It contains data on more than 35 million animals, with the oldest record dating back to 1903.
It was managed by LIC but changed to DairyNZ in 2014 after a long tussle between the bodies, though LIC retains some input because of IT capability that DairyNZ does not yet have.
The access panel must grant access where it is likely to benefit the NZ dairy industry and may do so if it is satisfied that will not cause harm.
MPI said the purpose of the review is to ensure the regulatory regime provides certainty the industry will have available the necessary data to meet its needs and data availability for industry-good purposes keeps pace with changing needs and technology.
The introduction of genomic data in bull selection is likely to make an increasingly important contribution to animal evaluation.
It is not presently covered by regulation and therefore not captured for industry-good purposes.
Ideally, the regulatory regime should be made sufficiently flexible to accommodate genomic data, MPI said.
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The Dairy Herd Improvement discussion document is available on the MPI website.
