Livestock Registering Federation / Breedplan
The Wagyu Society is a registered cattle breeders Society in South Africa (click here). The Society is also a member of the Livestock Registering Federation (LRF: www.lrf.co.za), an umbrella body for members acting as own Registering Authorities (RA) in Southern Africa as per the Animal Improvement Act 1998. A Registering Authority can issue its own registration certificates for animals to its members and the Wagyu Breeders Society is able to manage its own Performance Recording Scheme and a Scheme . Currently, eight South African beef breed societies, 21 Namibian cattle breed societies, and 16 cattle breed societies in Zimbabwe, are members of the LRF representing 1700 individual stud breeders.
All the LRF societies make use of ABRI/BREEDPLAN services for keeping record of their animals (pedigree, performance, and genomic data) as well as their member information. BREEDPLAN also provides the societies with a monthly genetic evaluation. For all the BREEDPLAN services rendered to the societies, the LRF office provides technical support to the societies and its members. This includes:
- Training/support to society staff on the use of ILR2, the registry used for keeping animal and member details.
- Technical support to staff on queries received from members.
- Training of members on the use and understanding of breeding values, performance recording, genomics, etc.
- Support for HerdMASTER, a farm management program that is 100% integrated with the Wagyu Society
- Running of the annual Stockmansschool