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COUNTRY LIFE IN BC • MAY 2017 WestGen posts multi-million dollar surplus


Beef business up 12% as AI centre gets ready to build new barns


by DAVID SCHMIDT ABBOTSFORD – 2016 was


an “incredible year” for WestGen, president Tony DeGroot told members at their annual meeting in Abbotsford on March 28. “Your company flourished while many others floundered,” chief executive officer Chris Parry added. While the move to new offices in Abbotsford highlighted the year, the 2016 financial results were as impressive. WestGen posted a surplus of almost $5.8 million, helped by operational profits of over $225,000, over $4,000,000 from property sales and just over $1,000,000 dollars from the Semex Alliance. “Financial stewardship is a


hallmark of the WestGen group, increasing our net worth year over year,” Parry said.


Although the Abbotsford


property is now WestGen’s only property, it is larger than all its previous properties combined. And the office will soon not be the only new building on the property. “We will be building new barns this year and hope to be in them by October,” Parry reported. He noted WestGen experienced its fourth consecutive year of increases in doses sold. While still a small part of overall sales, WestGen’s beef business increased exponentially, with revenues up 12% and doses sold increasing 20%. Revenues from WestGen’s breeding services, which the company reintroduced a few years ago, were up 13%. “We’ve now increased (beef semen sales) by 225% since 2011,” WestGen sales and marketing manager Paul Meyer reported.


Among the speakers at WestGen’s annual meeting were, from left to right, John Hylkema of Hyljon Holsteins in Saskatchewan, Bruno Divorne of Divorne Farms in Manitoba, Mike Vanden Dool of Vanden Dool Farms in Alberta, Dr. Lisa McCrae of Agwest Veterinary Group in Abbotsford, Melissa Bowers of Boviteq in Quebec and Semex Alliance director of genetics and genetic solutions Jay Shannon. DAVID SCHMIDT PHOTO


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more comfortable with genomics and other AI technologies, sexed semen and semen sales from Genomax and Immunity+ sires are growing rapidly while semen sales from proven sires is declining. Parry noted Immunity+ sires now represent 40% of Semex’s total semen sales. “Immunity+ really is a


game-changer,” Semex chief executive officer Paul Larmer stated, adding the Genomax


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program is doing just as well. Semen from Genomax sires represented only 17% of total doses and 20% of revenue in 2012 but has grown to 45% of doses and 59% of revenues in 2016. (Some sires are in both the Immunity+ and Genomax programs.) As AI studs rely more and


more on genomics, they are housing fewer and fewer bulls. In fact, says Semex Alliance’s global dairy solutions manager Jay Shannon, the AI studs are no longer competing to find the best bulls; instead, they are competing to buy the best cows. “It’s become about AI companies owning or controlling the highest genomic females,” he said. He points out 65-70% of


the top females in the world are controlled by just 25 breeding entities and Semex has access to 56% of those


females. Semex “now owns or


controls a significant portion of the highest genomic young females in the world,” Shannon said. By controlling elite females, AI companies get exclusive or near-exclusive access to bulls from their superior genetics. He says that is “separating” the top three or four global AI companies, including Semex, from the rest.


Their strategy is to use advanced IVF (in vitro fertilization) technologies to breed the best young females with the best young bulls. Bull calves with the highest genomic ratings go to Semex while female calves with the highest genomic ratings go to Progenesis (Semex’s new elite female division) or one of over 60 multiplier farms (including Westcoast Holsteins in Chilliwack) in North America and Europe.


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