#BeefPerformers: 2023 ARC National Best Elite Cow Awards category

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

The Agricultural Research Council (ARC) will once again present its prestigious National Beef Performers Awards in 2023. This is the 45^th instalment of the awards, the aim of which is to showcase the best of the best in seven categories, all relating to beef cattle performance and beef cattle producers. Each of the seven categories is sponsored by various agricultural companies and role-players, and serve to honour those who have excelled in their breeding and production practices, as well as the mentoring of fellow producers.

The Department of Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development (DALRRD) has been a key stakeholder in these awards since its inception and continues to play this role this year. As of 2022, Plaas Media is the main sponsor of the awards and will also be sponsoring some of the categories.

Best Elite Cow Awards

The Best Elite Cow Awards category has been in existence for more than four decades and has become synonymous with the awards event. It is also one of the most prestigious in the country when it comes to acknowledging beef cows with truly exceptional performance traits.

In fact, this award category only considers actual reproduction performance of participating cows, and physical appearance is not part of the selection criteria at all. For cows to be eligible for consideration they should exhibit exceptional reproduction figures and other economically important traits including their maternal ability and pre-weaning growth rate (weaning weight of their progeny). This award category is also contested, as in the past, among cows across all breeds and only one cow per breed will be crowned as the top female of each participating breed.

Our valued partner, Farmer’s Weekly, has been the sponsor of this award category since its inception.

Which cows may participate?

Both registered and commercial cows are eligible to participate and specific qualification criteria include age at first calving, the average intercalving period (ICP), days since the last calving, the completeness of records for weaning weights, performance records, breeding values regarding wean direct and wean maternal, birth maternal (where available), and the number of calves with reliable weaning weights.

For commercial cows where no BLUP breeding values are available, the criteria evaluated include, in addition to that already mentioned, the weaning index of the cow’s calves individually as well as for all calves weaned. Additional criteria used to identify the best performing cow per breed include: average efficiency index (if available); approval ratio (percentage of her progeny approved for registration by the relevant breeders’ society); reproduction index and the percentage of performance-tested calves.– Dr Ben Greyling and Frans Jordaan

The 2023 finalists

Tune in to the Farm TV YouTube channel on 23 November at 18:00.

Find out more about other awards categories:

• Get ready for the 2023 ARC National Beef Performers Awards

For more information, send an email to Dr Ben Greyling at ben@arc.agric.za or to Frans Jordaan at fransj@arc.agric.za. You can also visit the Beef Cattle Improvement Scheme website.