ProCROSS Conference
9-10 July 2024

Annica Hanson is a Production Advisor at Växa Sverige, Sweden's largest cattle breeding cooperative, and an Industrial PhD student at the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research.

Originally from Öland, Sweden's most dairy-dense province, her work is focused on optimising the number and status of cows for improved animal welfare, fertility, feeding, animal flow and occupancy, using X-Vik sexed semen and beef on dairy.

As part of her work at Växa, she has collaborated with the Skråmered ProCROSS herd in optimising feeding and management practices since 2019. She is also participating in a field study with 15 high-yielding dairy farms to optimise calving intervals for cows in their second lactation. 

Chris Walkland is an agricultural journalist, market analyst and consultant specialising in the dairy sector.
He has written about the industry for around 25 years on all aspects of the dairy supply chain from primary production on the farm through to the economics and politics at processor, retailer and consumer level.

He writes the fortnightly Dairy Market Report for The Provision Trade Federation – a trade body that represents many of the UK’s processors; is a commentator in British Dairying magazine, as well as other farming papers; and features every week in the Kite Consulting dairy industry podcast

Dr. Giovanni Bittante is a professor of animal science and genetic improvement at the University of Padua, Italy. A renowned scholar in animal breeding and genetics, he emphasizes the importance of considering genetics, environmental variables, rural sociology, product quality, and sustainability as parts of systematic animal breeding.

Kelly Cunningham, PhD, is a dairy producer and cattle nutrition expert from Atlantic, Iowa, USA. Kelly and his wife Christy are partners in Milk Unlimited Dairy Farms, home to 3400 cows, with 2800 milking.

Since 2018, Milk Unlimited has utilised the ProCROSS system to great success – boosting reproduction, health, longevity, components, milk flow and profitability. This increase in component levels has been exceptionally suited for Milk Unlimited's new processing contract for cheese production. ProCROSS cows now make up over 90% of the herd and growing.

Morten Kargo is a Senior Researcher at Aarhus University's Center for Quantitative Genetics and Genomics and Product Manager for DairyCross at VikingGenetics.

An expert geneticist and researcher, he aims to highlight the economic and management benefits of crossbreeding. His work focuses on developing a systematic dairy cattle breeding structure that accelerates crossbred production cows' performance and health improvements.

Patrick farms at Beckside Farm in the South-West corner of the Lake District. Although the cows are still largely pedigree Holstein, they are venturing further into ProCROSS.

The farm has 650 acres of owned land and a further 550 acres are rented to allow for ongoing expansion of the enterprise. There are currently 420 cows at Beckside and 800 sheep, with plans to expand to 800 cows in the very near future.

The cows are averaging 12,400 litres at 4.4% Fat and 3.4% Protein and the aim is to hit the 1000kg CFP in 2024.

Patrick is looking for a herd of cows that are both high in production, but easier managed and by utilising ProCROSS, they are also hopeful to see the additional benefits of increased feed efficiency from their hybrid vigour.