Dr Robert Banks has developed, managed, commercialised and achieved widespread industry adoption of a world class animal genetic analysis service, LAMBPLAN, for the Australian sheep and goat industry.Dr Robert Banks has developed, managed, commercialised and achieved widespread industry adoption of a world class animal genetic analysis service, LAMBPLAN, for the Australian sheep and goat industry.
In 1987, when Dr Robert Banks began working as the initial National Coordinator of LAMBPLAN, Australian Lamb Industry was in decline. Local and overseas markets regarded lamb as too fatty, leaving export markets static, and producers often trading at a loss. Lamb breeding typically went no further than the traditional methods of visual inspection at market and the hiring of reputable stud rams. In that year the industry earned only $500m on-farm, with only 15% exported.
LAMBPLAN has grown from a very simple system combining weight, fat and muscle data to generate within-flock, within-year EBVs, to a comprehensive genetic evaluation system focused on providing across-flock (across-breed for terminal sires) information on more than 40 traits for over 800 breeders. In the process, services have been customized to terminal sire, dual-purpose and Merino flocks, and more recently evolved to the Sheep Genetics service. Sheep Genetics through LAMBPLAN and MERINOSELECT provides across-flock (or breed) evaluations for terminal sire, dual-purpose and Merino flocks, and the MERINOSELECT service has bought together previously separate Merino services. More recently, Robert has been one of the driving forces behind moving towards one joint national genetic evaluation system for sheep in Australia
LAMBPLAN has helped the lamb industry transformation: it is now a $2bn industry with some 45% of production exported. Lamb producer incomes have grown accordingly, and there is increasing innovation in production systems and products. This has been assisted by the focus on genetic improvement for efficiency of production and product quality, and a continuing theme of integrating genetic- and non-genetic approaches through the supply chain
Rob's passion for effective breeding programs has resulted in initiatives with breeders that have contributed to genetic improvement at the farm level: these have included young sire programs in sheep and beef cattle, the Terminal and Maternal Central Progeny Test programs, the Meat Elite nucleus flock, and assisting the early implementation of TGRM. More recently, he has been actively involved in the establishment of the CRC for Sheep Industry Innovation, and in particular to the design and implementation of the Information Nucleus.