Overview
Dairy plays a critical role in Canada’s economy, generating $8.88 billion in net farm cash receipts and contributing $20 billion to GDP in 2024. As the sector strives to meet ambitious climate targets, producers face the challenge of balancing environmental goals with animal productivity, health and resilience.
Recognizing this, Semex, Canada’s leading cattle genetics company, and Lactanet, Canada’s leading provider of dairy herd management solutions, are spearheading the development and implementation of a genomics-based tool to identify climate-resilient cattle. This initiative aims to create and implement the Future-Proof Index – a novel genomic selection tool designed to optimize both mitigation and adaptation potential in dairy cattle.
The innovation addresses a critical gap in the industry: the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while managing the growing impact of heat stress on animal welfare and productivity. Unlike existing approaches, this index will incorporate broader genetic relationships among resilience, adaptability, and environmental traits, offering a more comprehensive solution.
Lactanet, a farmer-led, not-for-profit organization, brings essential expertise and infrastructure to the project. Its genomic toolbox already includes three mitigation traits (feed and methane efficiency, and body maintenance requirements), while University of Guelph research has been used to develop methodologies for adaptation traits, such as the effects of heat stress on health and performance.
By integrating mitigation, adaptation, and productivity traits, the Future-Proof Index will represent a world-first in breeding goals that simultaneously address climate resilience, as well as ensure social, economic and environmental sustainability. The index will be deployed through Semex’s Elevate platform, Canada’s largest and the world’s fastest-growing genomic testing system (expanding 15–20% annually), which currently serves 235,000 animals annually across 46 countries, including 45,000 in Canada.
The domestic rollout will be accelerated by Lactanet’s commitment to offer the index free of charge for male animals nationwide and for female animals within its membership (over 60% of producers), covering approximately 10,000 farms and 1.4 million cows.
Internationally, Semex will license the index at cost, positioning it as a premium climate-smart breeding solution. This dual-market strategy is projected to a) sustain Semex current growth trajectory of 15%/year ($14M this year) in exports of dairy genetics, b) deliver $778M to the Canadian dairy sector, c) cut 4.8Mt CO2e yearly, and d) position Canada as a global leader in climate-smart dairy genetics.
By leveraging existing infrastructure and integrating cutting-edge genomic science, this project will empower the dairy industry to meet net-zero targets while improving animal health, productivity, and welfare, ensuring long-term sustainability and profitability.