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STATES OF JERSEY
Corporate Services Scrutiny Panel
Proposed Importation of Bovine Semen MONDAY, 16th JUNE 2008
Panel:
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan of St. Helier (Chairman) Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier
Connétable G.F. Butcher of St. John Connétable P.F.M. Hanning of St. Saviour Professor S. Hall
Ms. S. Power (Scrutiny Officer)
Witnesses:
Mr. J. Le Feuvre Mrs. S. Le Feuvre
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan of St. Helier (Chairman):
Welcome to Mrs. Le Feuvre. For the sake of the record, could we just ask you to introduce yourself so that it is recorded.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
I am Sarah Le Feuvre.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Deputy Judy Martin, Sam Power, Peter Hanning, Deputy Patrick Ryan, Stephen Hall and Connétable Graeme Butcher. I think you wanted to go through various documents with us.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Yes, I sent those as an example of what can happen.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Well, I will hand over to you really to explain what your concerns are.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
All right. Well, firstly, in the past, I have been against the importing of semen and 2 or 3 years ago, I started thinking perhaps -- well, had to rethink my views on this and this cow Barbers Lady Carol probably started it because Barry and Jenny Daw came to the Island judging a herds' competition and they happened to leave their herd brochure and I found out from that that this cow was so closely related to one of my father's animals that he had exported. If you look at the milk records --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
What are we looking at first of all? If you could take us through this reasonably slowly.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Yes, it is probably easier to start on the right-hand side where there is a cow second from the right called Lassie Sunflower Design.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Yes.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
She was a show cow who lived for an awful long time. All her daughters were sold to the U.K. (United Kingdom) at good prices. It did not matter whether they milked or not because there were buyers for them and my father never slaughtered a heifer calf in his farming life because there was always a demand for the surplus.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: When did you father retire?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
1992. He was a tenant farmer, never milked more than 12 cows.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
So that was the size of his herd, 12 cows?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: Yes.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
But would it be fair to say that he was breeding for showing purposes?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Not entirely, no, but I will say that in those days herds like his were probably bred -- he did not make all the decisions. He would go to Mr. Francis Le Ruez or someone like that and that man would have known how the cow was bred, he would have known her sire, grandsire, et cetera, and he would have said: "I think I know the bull for this one" and that is what has been lost in the Island, is Master Breeders. That is one point I wanted to put across. He sold the daughter of this cow, Lassie's Dream Lady, and the important thing is the production average and also these genetic blocks at the bottom so you can obviously see they were not very productive cows and the next 2 generations were born in England but using island sires. They then bred Bluegrass Aimless Princess to a totally New Zealand sire. It had a Windsor prefix but it was pure New Zealand. It had been imported in. So you are looking at the second cow from the left.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Yes, the Bluegrass Commanders Marchioness.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Yes, averaging 6,489 over 7 lactations. Now, that is a huge increase from my dad's poor old cow who gave 3,741.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Yes, over 11 lactations.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: Yes.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Any significance to the 11 lactations over the 7 or does it just give you a better average?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Well, she just did not milk so, of course, if you do not work too hard, you probably live a bit longer. [Laughter] Bluegrass Barbers Lady Carol who is pictured here and she is almost 10 years old, it was pictured last month, and as you can see, she is eating grass. It is not rocket fuel. She is fed a normal diet as cows are in Jersey.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Where is that?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
In Hertfordshire. She has championed the Royal Show. She has championed the dairy event twice and is classified excellent at 95. Her production average is 7,752. This leads me on to speaking about the people who own this cow. They are county council tenants. It is not a flash estate. They feed their cows - and I have their herd brochure if anyone wants to look at it - on grass silage, maize silage, fodder beets and B.O.C.M. Pauls Jersey and Guernsey Gold 18 per cent, which is exactly the same feed that numerous farmers on the Island are using. So this fallacy that they feed differently and that is why they get high production, I think this shows their average is well over 6,000. Their butterfat on this farm is 5.58 which is much higher than the Island average and looking at the money they are making selling their stock, because they have extremely good conformation stock, they have 42 excellents and they can sell any number of their surplus animals. I thought, as a cattle breeder who does a reasonable job, I could be part of that action and unfortunately people do not come to this Island to buy cattle and that is one of my main reasons to want imports because I can see that -- we milk about 125 cows, we do not want to get any bigger but selling cattle at say an average of £1,500 which is the going rate at the moment, would be a profitable exercise for us. We could keep all our heifers. We know how to breed cows and it just would help our profits together with having much higher production so we could get more milk from our cows but the sale of animals is one of the planks that I like --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
So what is the sale of animals and exporting of animals generally?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Well, at the moment, it is just dire.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Dire, but it was one of the main planks of your father's business, yes?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Yes, but this was in the 1980s and 1990s it was still pretty successful but unfortunately it has gone. In the recent exit scheme, I think the animals averaged around the £500 mark. People will say: "Oh, people do not come here because of the freight." Well, I am sorry but £150 is not going to decide someone. If they find good animals, they will pay the freight.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
What would a top animal be worth from anywhere around the world now?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Well, I am given to understand that these people sold 4 animals some time ago and they asked £10,000 a cow and got not far from that amount.
Connétable P.F.M. Hanning of St. Saviour : The freight cost?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
No, this is the people in England.
Deputy J.A. Martin:
No, this is in Hertfordshire.
The Connétable of St. Saviour :
No, no, I am just saying if we were to export from Jersey?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: £150. Yes.
The Connétable of St. Saviour : Okay.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
£200 maximum depending on where they are in England so
The Connétable of St. Saviour : Yes, not a lot.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
If you were spending a few thousand, you would not be worried about spending for the freight.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Yes, and you would not just export one cow. You would come and buy 10.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Well, no, some people might. It depends.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
My experience is it is £50 a ton in weight to export and to import from the U.K. is about the going rate but if it is an animal that you are exporting, it needs special consideration. How much does a cow weigh?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: No, it is on Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Half a ton?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Less than that. You send them in horse boxes. It is the same as shipping a horse, okay. A cow takes the same space as a horse.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
So we will take your word for it, about £150 an animal.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: To £200, yes.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
To transport across the water.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: Yes.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Then from then onwards, you would have similar costs. So I think you are making out a very good case through this particular example. That is that one. Are there different ones or
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
No, this is all relating to the same. The second sheet with the brown cow on the left-hand side just gives her classification, her genetic merits and her lactations. We do get the occasional cow that gives 8,000 or 10,000 in Jersey but you will find that is probably a one-off lactation, very rarely repeated, but if you looked at her yields, the lowest is 7,000 and the highest is 8,770 and I am sure the demand for both her daughters and sons is great.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Let me just ask you a question about Bluegrass Aimless Princess, probably an unfortunate name but obviously
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: She did not make it. Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: No.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
I would assume -- they had 2 maternal sisters and they got rid of them or that something happened to them in their first lactation after giving birth to one heifer and I assume that they thought well, these are not going to milk and they either sold them or slaughtered them, I do not know what happened but I am sure that that as I had enough daughters by that bull, they would not have milked any better than the others that were Island-bred.
The Connétable of St. Saviour :
Could I just check here, going back to your first sheet, in timescale from -- could you just run us through the timescale of this in years as opposed to generations because we are looking at a change from the 3,000 mark to 7,000.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
All right. To be honest, you are looking because the 2 animals that were born in England but by Jersey sires, they are really Island breeding. They are pure --
The Connétable of St. Saviour : Yes, taking it from there.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
From there. Well, the next generation, she would have calved down 2 years and it is a pretty short timescale really. Much quicker ...
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Two years for each one of them or
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
No, much quicker than I expected, yes. I thought that the genetic improvement was going to take an awful lot longer than it appears in this.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
So the total from pure Jersey Island Jersey to this one producing 7,700 is how long?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Depends how old Commanders Marchioness was when she gave birth to Lady Carol but it could be 5
years between.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Plus we have this initial vigorous effect of genetic improvement that will not necessarily continue.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
No, obviously it does not carry on otherwise you would have cows giving 20,000, would you not. [Laughter]
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
You wish. [Laughter] Okay, that is that one. Is there -- oh, yes, this is the same cows but all in different --
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Yes, that is the Island pedigree at the back and I do have to say that my father's cows were well looked after. They were not poorly fed or anything, they were well looked after but some cows, no matter what you give them to eat, they just do not milk and that is genetics.
Professor S. Hall :
Yes, you have a very nice and clear way of expressing things and you can see the increasing yield as time goes on. There are a couple of things which I could not quite understand and they are probably masses of detail that do not need to concern us too much but one was to ask you what exactly you meant by genetic index for milk and equating that to a P.T.A. (predicted transmitting ability) and if we look at the page just before this last one, you see that P.T.A. is presented as a characteristic of the bull. In other words, its predicted ability of transmitting his mother's composites. Do you see what I mean?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: No, I am not
Professor S. Hall :
But at any rate, I do not think this is crucial to the whole thing but it simply means that I am not sure if this is the correct use of the term P.T.A. I have not had a chance to study this massive amount of detail and similarly I am not sure if that is quite the right use of the term "genetic index" but maybe if I have more time to study it, I would find that I am not raising an issue here. But, having said that, also it is -- and the Chairman did allude to this -- at least part of this massive increase is probably, well, may I suggest it might be at least partly hybrid vigour, partly heterosis, because you are mating Bluegrass Aimless Princess who was born in the U.K.?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: Yes.
Professor S. Hall :
She was mated with a pure New Zealand. Well, you are going to get a hybrid vigour effect from that because they are genetically, to some extent, distant.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: Yes.
Professor S. Hall :
Okay, so at least part of that improvement is going to be because of heterosis. It is not going to be because of the particular genes of the New Zealand animal. It is going to be effectively because they are different genes.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: Right.
Professor S. Hall :
Similarly then, very wisely, you mated that Commanders Marchioness with one from the U.S.A. (United States of America) and you have heterosis again, you see, so at least some of this increase in yield is due to hybrid vigour effect.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Can I say that we can breed over here to a bull that is totally unrelated to our cows and we do not get this hybrid vigour effect.
Professor S. Hall :
No, of course you do not, on the Island.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: No.
Professor S. Hall :
No, because they are all closely related to each other but ...
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Well, some blood lines are not closely related.
Professor S.J.G. Hall :
Well, the Chikhi study shows that there is a very close relationship. But, again, this does not bear at all on your main point which is that the increase in yield has come and the Royal Show champion and these other things, to a great degree, they speak for themselves. You have shown a very considerable increase in yield but it is simply on what I have seen in front of me is I am not sure if the actual figures are quite correspondent to the headings they have been given. There might be some -- the actual sizes of these figures might be
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
I apologise for that but I did the research and I got it all -- the R.J.A. (Royal Jersey Agricultural) typed it up for me and I am sure they are not distorting --
Professor S. Hall : Well, the distortion --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Dr. Hall is an academic and he has to be very picky.
Professor S. Hall :
Well, yes, I can see that. I did start by saying that the story is clear, that the point you are making is clearly made but there may be some issues about the figures which I may have misapprehended things but
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
The message is quite clear. Do you have anything, though -- you have probably heard or I am not sure how long you have been here but there are concerns about health issues, all sorts of other concerns. Do you have anything to say about that?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Well, I have made a few notes on different things. Professor, you asked someone why 127 bulls were used. I think I can tell you why. Because there is no reliable proven bulls and we do not know where we are going basically. That is one of the reasons. Okay, we use young bulls on heifers and that but this -- and we are having to use bulls from the past. Our herd is probably one of the better ones and I put it down partly to the fact that we are using old proven sires who were born mainly between 1983 and 1990 and we should not have to be doing that. Nowhere else in this world are they using old sires. We are just keeping a standard. We are not improving our production in our herd and I will say our herd may be regarded as one of the better herds on the Island but if you put it in a world-wide context, we could
not compete with the best herds elsewhere unfortunately and that is what I would like to see, is that people came back to this Island to see our cows as being the best Jerseys in the world and, sadly, our cricketers are higher in the world rankings than our cows. [Laughter] I have --
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
I will ask Mr. Perchard about that. [Laughter]
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
I have done quite lot of research before meeting you today and other things that are said -- ever since I have been involved in cows, which is 30 years, people have been saying: "Oh, the world will return to the home of the breed". Well, we are still waiting and I think we have got a long wait if we do not import semen.
Deputy J. Martin:
Sorry, did you start by saying that you were an anti-importation?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: Yes, I was.
Deputy J. Martin: So, when did you --
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
The start was about 3 or 4 years ago, when I saw the success that this herd was having with the descendant of my father's cows. I thought: "I do not know, this is not right. There is something -- perhaps I should have listened to my husband". Also, there were so many herds going the master breeders - that is the other thing I said - that have gone, unfortunately, there are not the people on the island to breed the bulls. It is really sad but there are not as many breeders' herds as there was.
Professor S. Hall :
Yes. I think that really helps. That ties up a lot of things and thank you for explaining about the 127 bulls. I suppose if semen importation goes ahead, or even if it does not, it is obviously that things have been focused towards a necessity for new approaches to the whole question of breeding and I am, I suppose, one of the questions that some people might want to ask is, how likely, how confident are you that the breed can work together or have you become really quite sort of divided into different camps on this kind of thing?
I think you will find that some of the people who do not want to import semen, within 4 years, if it happens, will be doing exactly that. Because there is nothing like seeing your neighbour doing rather better, whether it would be fertilising a potato crop and you saw all the plastic covering the potatoes. I am sure when plastic first came in, some farmers thought: "Oh, we are not going to do that." They soon latched on to it when they saw their neighbours digging 2 weeks earlier, and it will be the same, apart from a few die-hards.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Were there any other reasons to change your mind, from where you were?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: Yes.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Let us go in the other direction. Let us say, why were you so anti?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Well, because my father was still making money and we could sell animals to Kenya, Brazil, all over the place in the 1980s and 1990s and I did not see the need. Also, the U.K. had not really imported semen to a great extent. We were comparing ourselves to the U.S. and, you know, everyone said, well they feed differently and whatever, and there is a certain element of that. But once I saw how much these U.K. cows, who really are fed exactly the same as ours, were producing, I thought -- I just thought, well, we can get more production. There are some cows who just do not milk, no matter what.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
You started to say there are other reasons and then I stopped you and
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre:
Yes. One was, I saw a herd that had once been a very, very good herd and unfortunately the conformation in our cows has to a large extent had gone. Where we were known for wonderful udders, really some of them are very poor and unfortunately we do get the occasional bull where they milk reasonably well but often the udders are not there, whereas you can with these overseas bulls, you can get good udders and lots of milk and the 2 are very rarely found on the Island.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Anything that we have missed that you would like to put into the public domain?
I would just point out, I have got a son who wants to farm and so we want to -- and he is there. [Laughter]
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Thank you very much for your time, for taking the time to come and speak to us. Again, we look forward to -- will you be able to come to the public meeting?
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: Oh, yes. [Laughter]
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
We look forward to reflecting your views in some way in our report. Thank you very much, Mrs. Le Feuvre.
Mrs. S. Le Feuvre: Thank you. My husband?
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: Mr. Le Feuvre?
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
I apologise but I know I had it right. I was supposed to be here at 4.30 p.m. Nobody told me otherwise.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Is there anything you would like to add to your very capable wife's evidence that she has given us?
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
That is fair enough. So you know where we come from?
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan: We do.
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
I will tell you where I come from. I think I have been involved with cattle for over 60 years and I have seen the way things have developed. To put it in a nutshell, I will tell you what I have done, just to fill in things. Okay? I have been a breeder since 1966. As far as recognition; I have been president of the society for 6 years and I am now one of only 3 honorary life members. Okay? I would think I am pretty well versed in what goes on in other parts of the world. I have been to Australia twice, New Zealand,
Brazil, U.S.A. 4 times, Canada, U.K., most of Europe, I have judged 5 Royal Shows - one the Sydney Royal Easter Fair, Australia; Royal Show, Stoneleigh; Royal Welsh Show, which is the largest agricultural show in the U.K.; Royal Balmoral, Northern Ireland and the Royal Cornwall. I think I can give a true representation as to where the breed has gone in Jersey and otherwise. I am sure you have all had this book which tells you -- there is a report which says for each of the countries how their breed has developed in the last period, in other words, the last 3 to 4 years. The world is going ahead; there is no question about it, and they are not waiting for us. I was in favour of bringing in semen in 1983 and I have never changed and I think it is because I have seen the way the breed has developed in other countries. To bring it closer to home; English cows were not a lot different to Island cows up until about 25 years ago. They may be a bit bigger, they might have been a bit coarser boned but their production was about the same and in those days and before people used to come to Jersey to buy cattle. This no longer happens. The breed in the U.K., like in all other countries, has changed significantly; not only in the performance but also in dairy quality and that is why they get performance. Now what I say by dairy quality is the way the cow looks; she looks as if she is a dairy cow as opposed to a beef cow and there is a significance because there are true dairy breeds and there are true beef breeds and there are dual purpose breeds. The Jersey cow, there is no question about it, is one of the true dairy breeds and it has to have the dairy qualities. Since 1983 the breed - I came in when Sarah was already talking - has not made any significant advances in the Island. I am one that, even though I went along with Jim Allen -- he came and he told us what to do for a breeding scheme. It did not work. It has not proven. I think we must have put 160 bulls, maybe 180 bulls through the scheme. Quite honestly, the saying that a good bull will pop up, which is always the kind of thing people thought would happen; it did not happen. We have had a few bulls a bit better but we have had so many bulls which came out on the minus side and that is the most significant thing if you look at what has happened. Actually Dr Deeble said that would happen. Now, Deeble had carried out a study, a genetic study in 1982. From that, that was why some of us then went for importation. What he said is virtually proved in that we went down our own scheme; it did not work. Our genetic base is not broad enough. The panel advisers say that we are narrow. Geneticists say that we are not too narrow but the actual cattle have not got this will to perform and I am afraid we are just going backwards. The other thing that is most relevant and you will most likely hear it from most of the better-informed, is, I am not afraid to say this, most of the people who are against imported semen do not really know what is going on in the rest of the world. They have not been to see and they do not want to see, I am afraid. Really, the right word to say, it worries me that we are in a situation where we have got people who do not want to improve their cattle. There is cattle breeding - the herd book. The herd book in Jersey, the herd book all over the work. Part of what the herd book is meant to do is record the ancestry and record the performance and all breeds -- all societies when they were set up in their own countries, they had their aims and it was to improve their cattle within their own country. All those countries that set up herd books outside Jersey, they were based on the herd book of Jersey originally. They all had the same aims, there is no question about that. All right. I am here to answer questions if you want. [Laughter]
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
We have heard various people saying that we must -- some concerns about disease coming in from outside to what is a closed kind of doomsday scenario where we could wipe out the whole herd. What do you say to those kinds of
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
Well, you have only got to go to Australia and New Zealand - countries whose economies are significantly influenced by their product, their agricultural and horticultural product. If you go to Australia and New Zealand, if you have been, I apologise, you will see -- anybody going to Australia, they will ask if you have been on a farm in Europe or in America or whatever it is. These countries are the most stringent in their health restrictions because their economy revolves around animals and what they grow. They have got no problem importing from other countries so are we saying we know better than they do?
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Okay. Well we can certainly look into what controls and what safeguards
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
There are standard controls now in place in all importing countries and there are standard controls on where semen and where and how semen is collected. I mean, all A.I. (Artifical Insemination) centres, all over the world, have quarantine restrictions; bulls have got to go into isolation for either 3 to 6 weeks. They are then cleared to go on station collect and they collect at the same international standards.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
What do you say to some of the people that we have heard that are saying that it is not the genetics, it is the husbandry locally. We have heard various things being said. Members of the panel can help me as to what has been said because I do not think you were here but what do you say to that kind of attitude, that kind of contention?
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
The husbandry and the management on the farms in Jersey is as good, maybe a little better, than in most holdings in the U.K., that is for sure. If you ask anybody who farms in the U.K., the agricultural or the dairy industry in the U.K. has been through 10 years of pretty rough times financially and there has not been a significant reinvestment in a lot of farms in the U.K. It is happening now; prices have gone up, everybody is poised and they are hoping they are going to continue but costs are going up also. But Jersey, you know what I mean, most of the farms in Jersey are pretty well up to date. I would not say they have not got to be updated right now, but they were up to date 10 years ago and as up to date as any farms in the U.K. or Europe. The standards we have got to work to, I am talking about the standards of hygiene and health for cattle - exactly the same. We are all using the same methods and it is the standard methods. There is no question about that.
Deputy P.J.D. Ryan:
Any other assertions or points of view from other people that we have seen earlier, panel, that we would like to ask Mr. Le Feuvre for his response to?
The Connétable of St. Saviour :
Could I just ask, with your experience of judging all around the world, would we see any change, in your view, if imported semen was brought in? Because you are seeing Jersey cattle as they look in Jersey and you have been judging Jersey cattle as they are all around the world. Would you expect to see any changes?
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
In the cattle here, then?
The Connétable of St. Saviour : With imported semen?
Mr. J. le Feuvre:
You will see a change in that they will look like a dairy cow is meant to look. Our cattle in Jersey have got -- they have lost their dairyness and if I go -- not technically -- if I go to terms that a layman would not understand -- it means they have lost their, some say, flatness in bone; I call it sharpness in bone. That they look like cows that are working. A lot of the cattle in Jersey have got - I have to be careful how I say this - maybe to get too heavy and if a dairy cow gets heavy, she does not perform. She is not in the right condition to perform.
The Connétable of St. Saviour :
You are not the first one to have said that.
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
Also I picked up from the panel adviser what he said, the -- what came out of those pedigrees. Yes, there will be significantly more change on the first round for sure. It will have a dramatic effect but it is not going to happen in 5 minutes. (1) You have got to breed the animal; (2) the animal has got to get to 2 years of age and be a heifer calf -- I mean, if it is a bull it is downgrading, it is as simple as that. It is a 5-year programme, this, before you are really going to see the results of the first round. It is too late now and in 5 years' time if it does not happen, I dread to think how many brown cows you are going to see in Jersey. You might see more horses. But it really concerns me and I will not be involved then. I hope this bloke is going to be getting going pretty soon. [Laughter] One other thing I picked out -- the other thing, too - you might have heard this before - the cows in Jersey, from my early memory, to 1975 onwards. The cows were in much more dairy. The other thing you have got to remember - I think you have most like been told and if I repeat what other people have said, I apologise - in the late 1940s and through the 1950s, there were up to 2,000 animals being exported each year from Jersey. Do not think these people were taking cattle across the world. You know, I am saying to Australasia and countries like that, or across the Atlantic. They were not coming to buy the worst cattle. They took most of the best cattle and these blokes knew. Most of them were dealers; they bought cows that they could sell again. They bought loads. They took them across there and they put them up to auction. They had to buy the best or they would not have sold them again and they would not have made money. They were dealers, it is as simple as that. That was significant in that these people could make a living and you have not got to go that far back and see how it has all happened. It is not that many generations since they were bringing these cattle in and they have achieved what they have done with the cattle that have got the same base as us.
Professor S. Hall :
That is one of your earlier points about looking more "dairy-like". In fact, earlier on we have heard the term "athletic" used which is rather nice.
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
Yes, they are not that good at that. [Laughter]
Professor S. Hall :
Just as well. But, I mean, I suppose, in a way, I am kind of anticipating something that perhaps some of the tourists might say who obviously contribute a lot to the Island's economy, is that: "Gosh these cows look very thin." You know, when we came before they were nice and plump and well-rounded and we know, obviously, that for a dairy cow it is not an ideal state to be plump and well-rounded and, in fact, far from it.
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
It is when she is not performing.
Professor S. Hall :
Well, exactly. But this is partly a question of management of public attitudes. How would you handle that one? What would you say? In one of the written submissions we saw at an early stage the question - I may be wrong but I think it was that pamphlet produced by the society - it said the cows will not look any different to the layman; but from what you are saying it sounds as though they might look really a bit more angular, a bit bonier?
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
No, I do not think they will look that much different. You know, people when they go and look at a herd of cows, tourists, they normally take a picture from a coach. We have 2 main roads and our cows cross 2 main road to get to grazing; it is a place where the coaches pass. The walkers now come to see the cows and they never expect -- there are always a few cows that are thinner than the others, depending on the stage of their lactation and they never say anything about that. I do not see that being a problem because the public, other than on animal health grounds or animal welfare grounds, the public do not go around criticising them. Anybody that does not look after their animals; more fool them because the animals will not look after them. So it is as simple as that.
Connétable G.F. Butcher of St. John :
Quite some time ago - I would think we are probably talking a couple of decades - it had been mentioned to me, whether it be true or not and I am sure you will tell me if it is not, that the Island sold some of its best bulls out of the Island and if that was the case, was that a mistake at the time?
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
That was the business, I am afraid. The farms and machinery -- I will tell you a couple of stories if you have got 5 minutes. Farms were bought in the 1930s and 1940s through selling cattle. Houses were built on selling bulls. I will not name names but people have told me they have built houses in the 1950s through selling a bull. One farmer at St. Mary, and I will not go any further, he sent 2 heifers once to a Redding show and sale. 1948 this was and he had just started farming then and he was persuaded by one of our agents to send these animals to Redding. He sold them and he bought 2 new Ferguson tractors for what he sold those animals for. It was a need; it was after the war and things like that. People started to -- they realised things were going on and they were. There was a demand. The best bulls went. The bulls used to go and very often if a bull came up as a good breeding bull he would be bought and 5 or 6 of his daughters, better daughters, would go with him so that that bull could be either sold again, all right, with 4 top daughters and the bull would then -- the sort of money you were talking about then compared to today's money. If we were doing that today we would not be here.
The Connétable of St. John :
What you are saying is, for short-term gain, has caused some of the problems that you are having now?
Mr. J. Le Feuvre:
No. What happened then was, it was a business and people were -- there were 800 breeders here in 1948, 800. Most likely 100-150 of them made money on exporting animals. The people that bought them were the ones who exploited them and gained from them. I was in Canada and the U.S.A. last November. You must never think that these people who keep Jersey cows on the other side of the world do not know what they are doing. These people can take you into their offices or their homes and they can show you when the first cows came on to their farms; 100 years ago and they can show you their breeding all the way through. The oldest herd in Australia went to 1974; Anderson's in Australia. Bert Anderson took me into his office and he said: "Look, these were our first cows. Came from Jersey and that is where they are and we have still got those families." These people are more proud and I have got to say this; they are more proud of their Jersey cows than most of our Jersey farmers. It is as simple as that.
Deputy P.F.D. Ryan:
All right. Any more questions of Mr. Le Feuvre? Well, with that very interesting conversation and piece of evidence, Mr. Le Feuvre, thank you very much for joining us. Mrs Le Feuvre, thank you very much. We will call it a day for this evening. Thank you very much and we look forward to seeing you tomorrow evening.