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I went to a meeting a while back, which I don't generally do. Mostly because people that go to meetings would be there. Speaker showed slides of feedlots and poultry houses from several years ago. Calves were of every color as were the chickens. New picture was all black calves and white birds. Keep the breed association alive.

As a former board member of a breed association, you need to adapt to change. Some members think that we have to stay loyal to your breed association. All these programs and fees add up to allot of money to keep the herd registered and scored, when you are a commercial herd. The dairy business is that a business. When you see breed area reps take personal trips, stop at two dairies along an 700-mile road trip so you can pick up a grandchild is ridiculous.

I think the value of registered dairy cattle, other than high genomic or national show winners, is little more, if any, than non-registered dairy cattle. Dairy breed associations were built and thrived at one time because there was an increased monetary value in reg. dairy cattle over non-registered or grade cattle. That value is no longer there and entire associations cannot survive without the increased value of registered cattle being present. The added costs of owning registered cattle - registering, classification, transfer fees, etc. cannot be justified in today's market and in my opinion, has not been justified for many years. Most dairy breed cattle associations will become one association or will become a thing of the past.

I think sometime in the not so distant future the color breed associations, except for Jersey, will need to combine into one association. The Holstein Association will continue to become the 'processing center' for data on all the dairy breeds and many other livestock breeds.

Not much, breed associations seem to serve the almighty dollar more than the farmer and I fail to see their necessity. They profess to strive for the advancement of the breed but usually end up crossbreeding to compete with Holstein cows. Any dairyman who exits today rarely blames his lack of registered cattle on his going out of business. Lot of good herds out there that started registered and quit keeping the papers up but kept sire ID and ironically you can still find a good one there.