George Monbiot's book is getting a lot of attention just now but I really believe that the most important thing we can do is to promote local food. If we haven't learned by now how stupid it is to allow control over our food production to be taken over by large corporations or mad dictators then the human race deserves all it gets..

We definitely have the technology now to look for DNA differences. The problem for us would be getting samples. We haven't seen it in our Traditional cattle (yet). There are a few things however that we need to look at that are regarded as undesirable "Hereford traits". In UK the main criticism is lack of milk, although it is all relative and I think the Traditional population is not bad for this nowadays. Vaginal prolapse in another thing I've heard talked about but again I don't know how widespread it is - probably only seen in older cows? Udder conformation is very variable too, some being excellent and others not great, but it would need a lot of data collecting to make any judgements.

That’s really interesting- I wonder if anyone does that here in UK. Anyone heard of this? Serena

Hi Paul The forum is new and not many members have cottoned on to it yet but I’m sure we’re all delighted to have your input! Lovely to hear from you! Serena from Kileekie