1.10.1.1 Cattle breeding nowadays (2024)

In cattle breeding the AI bulls are still owned by a company, but more often they also start to own breeding females. In the Netherlands, CRV is the largest cattle breeding company. Worldwide there are less than 10 other large cattle breeding companies. But still a number of smaller breeding companies exists mainly operating in their own country and still selling semen as the main product. When doing this, their competitors can use breeding products without the costs for development. Therefore, larger cattle breeding companies start to apply restrictions on the use of calves for breeding born out of the semen they sell. E.g. CRV introduced restrictions on the use of semen from a small selected group of young bulls that they use as sires of bulls in their own breeding program (Create sires). Breeders using this semen on their farm are not allowed to sell the calves born out of this semen without the permission of CRV. But in cattle, there is strong international exchange of semen and embryo’s for many breeds. Nevertheless, in these global cattle breeds the herd books are organized within the countries they are kept.