Review of Governance of the National Breeding Objective (NBO)

In August 2010, the Board of DairyNZ commissioned a review of the governance of the National Breeding Objective (NBO), which included reviewing the governance and structure of New Zealand Animal Evaluation Limited (NZAEL) as the company that governs the NBO.

The review team lead by Jim van der Poel was commissioned to produce:

A view as to whether the Governance of NZAEL is structured to act in the best interests of the dairy industry, and if not, any suggested structural changes
A view on the interaction of NZAEL and its providers (those actually doing the work for them) and any influence this has on NZAEL's ability to make independent decisions in the best interests of the dairy industry, including the position of and operation of the Animal Evaluation Unit (AEU)
A view as to whether the support given to NZAEL is sufficient to allow NZAEL to make independent decisions in the best interests of the dairy industry
Recommendations on how DairyNZ can better support NZAEL to achieve its objectives
A view as to how NZAEL should interact with NAIT.

Review Findings

Overall, there was united support for a strong industry National Breeding Objective (NBO) and that NZAEL (under DairyNZ) should continue to govern the NBO. There was uniform recognition of the significant past contribution of NZAEL and the future importance of genetic gain and the NBO to New Zealand dairy farming.

There were however, specific issues raised about transparent independence, quality of technical advice and the management resources of NZAEL that are addressed in this review.

It is the review team's opinion that changes are needed in relation to structure, process and support of NZAEL to address the identified issues and to position NZAEL and the industry to deal with future challenges that it faces in relation to the NBO.