7 Sep 2012

Livestock firm to compensate farmers for genetic defect in bull

1:57 pm on 7 September 2012

Livestock Improvement Corporation has agreed to pay dairy farmers the costs of inseminations and semen from a dairy bull which was found to have a genetic defect.

The organisation provides farm management information, herd testing and artificial breeding services to the dairy industry.

Chairman Murray King says once LIC discovered that some of the female offspring of a bull called Matrix had a genetic defect it decided that as a gesture of good will it would compensate the affected farmers.

He says in the past 50 years LIC has provided dairy farmers with semen from more than 9000 bulls and only twice have genetic defects been identified.