We hope that you enjoyed the Conference,
and we look forward to seeing you again next year!

The Oral Presentations are now uploaded as pdf files

Plenary Presentation

Professor Daniel Berckmans is acknowledged as the "spiritual father" of Precision Livestock Farming. He is Full Professor in the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium and Adjunct Distinguished Professor in the University of Tennessee, USA, but still finds time to be Chief Technical Officer of BioRICS NV, specialists in real-time monitoring of mental, energetic and physiological state. His Plenary Presentation will consider the potential for future generations of sensor technologies to optimise dairy cow management, including individualised precision feeding. In his words:  For the future, the challenge is to increase the efficiency of using feed energy by reducing losses due to disease, adverse welfare, poor health, inappropriate management. 

Meet our Key Speakers
Marco Winters is Head of Animal Genetics at AHDB, with lead responsibility for genetic and genomic evaluations of UK dairy cattle.  A specialist in  directs national breeding goals. A specialist in the international dairy cattle breeding industry, Marco also directs national breeding goals for the UK dairy sector. With his deep understanding of the UK industry, Marco will focus on what that industry will look for in the Next Generation Dairy Cow. 
Mike Coffey is Professor in Livestock Breeding at SRUC and a former Vice President for Science at EAAP. ​His research interests lie in the genetic and genomic improvement of farmed livestock, especially dairy, for traits valuable to the animal, the farmer and society. started in dairy but has expanded to include beef, sheep, goats and pigs. This process is compute intensive and so another area of interest is in the programming and hardware requirements to undertake these analyses more efficiently. Recently, this has extended to the use of Deep Learning to predict new phenotypes from milk mid infra-red spectral data. Mike is interested in breaking the paradigm of managing plant and animal breeding separately, believing that integrated management might increase efficiency and reduce GHG emissions. He is well placed to explore what genomics can offer to the Next Generation Dairy Cow. 
Liam Sinclair is Professor of Animal Science at Harper Adams University and a Past President of BSAS. Liam has published extensively in ruminant nutrition and metabolism, spanning forage utilisation, manipulation of milk fatty acid profile, modifying rumen function to mitigate GHG emissions and, in collaboration with Nottingham University, seeking to understand relationships between dietary protein and energy intakes and microbial protein synthesis in the rumen. This will be his focus. He has received a number of distinguished awards, including an Associateship of the Royal Agricultural Societies and the Sir John Hammond Prize.
Chris Reynolds is Professor of Animal and Dairy Science and director of the Centre for Dairy Research at the University of Reading. His research  focuses heavily on the nutritional physiology of dairy cows in relation to energy and protein metabolism. Using multi-catheterised animal models Chris has made a major contribution to our understanding of protein and amino acid utilisation in ruminants, an interest that continues and will be the focus for his presentation. In common with several of our speakers, Chris is also an active member of the Dairy Science Forum. 
Liz Barron-Majerik MBE is the Scotland Director of Lantra, a charity that works to support the rural economy and enhance the natural environment by increasing the number and diversity of skilled employees in Scotland’s land based and aquaculture sector. Previously she was Programme Development Manager of Natural and Applied Science for Inverness College UHI, and her academic background is in plant science, with a degree in botany and PhD in Agronomy, though most of her career has been in academic management. In 2011 Liz gained an MBE for her work engaging young people in STEM and she is currently Co-Chair of the Commission for the Land-Based Learning Review, undertaking a root and branch review of learning in Scotland’s land-based agriculture and aquaculture sectors. 
Massimo Bionaz is Associate Professor in Dairy Nutrigenomics at Oregon State University, and currently on sabbatical in Piacenza, Italy. His research focuses on nutrigenomics in dairy animals, effects of milk on human health, wellbeing of dairy animals, systems biology and use of hemp by-products in livestock. He has recently published a major review of dairy cow fatty acid nutrition, "from gut to cells and effects on performance" and his presentation will cover nutrigenomics from both protein and fatty acid perspectives.
Katie Denholm is an Academic Clinician in the University of Glasgow. After working and studying veterinary epidemiology in New Zealand for 12 years she returned to Scotland  where she has focused her research on colostrum management and calf health, a topic that she has reviewed recently for the Journal of Dairy Research (the review will appear in the November issue coinciding with the Conference).  
Pete Iannetta is Head of Ecological Food Systems at the James Hutton Institute and an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Dundee. He is a plant biologist and ecologist, who studies the complex interactions which determine the sustainability of food- and feed-systems, and his research is strongly focused on legume-supported cropped systems, from production to consumption. This includes developing the use of underutilised crops and novel cropped systems, and in his presentation he will focus on improving the use of  home-grown protein in dairy cow feeds.
Jon Moorby holds the Chair in Livestock Science at IBERS in the University of Aberystwyth. Jon's research focuses on ways of improving the efficiency of ruminant livestock production, which he envisages as  farming to make use of feeds that people cannot eat to produce foods that people can eat. Traditionally where ruminants are involved this would mean forage, and much of Jon's work has been in collaboration with the plant breeders at Aberystwyth with the aim of improving the use of fresh and conserved forages as feeds. More innovative approaches and alternative sources of feed protein are also now being considered, and this is where Jon will focus.