The European collaboration began in 2009 when Holstein-Friesian cattle breeders from different European countries decided to combine their bull genomic data into a single reference population. The EuroGenomics Consortium comprised six countries: Germany, France, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Finland. Spain and Poland later joined it.
Today, the shared reference population in the Holstein-Friesian breed is the largest in the world, with more than 35,000 bulls genotyped and conventionally evaluated on daughters across Europe. The large population has increased the reliability of genomic evaluation of breeding values in 11 countries covering more than 10 million Holstein-Friesian cows: Finland, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, Poland, France and Spain. Due to the large number of bulls included in the reference population, official genomic breeding values are the most reliable predictors of the breeding quality of bulls and cows in European production systems.
In 2014, exchanges between members were expanded to include genotypes and pedigree data of young bulls, allowing for increased reliability of genomic breeding value assessments at various national scales.
In April 2016, those involved in this European cooperation transformed the consortium into a legal entity in the form of a cooperative to optimize processes around joint policy-making and joint implementation of activities. The name of the organization is EuroGenomics Coöperative U.A.
EuroGenomics members are driven by innovation and are constantly looking for new ways to improve cattle breeding efficiency.
Within the EuroGenomics Cooperative, partners focus on driving genetic progress through:
- genotyping for breeding and herd management,
- sharing genetic data to obtain reliable evaluations for low-inheritance traits,
- conducting applied research,
- constructing EG microarrays (in collaboration with Illumina and since 2024 with ThermoFisher),
- genomic evaluations of animals based on a common European reference population.
More at: https://www.eurogenomics.com/