Genetic firm celebrates

CRV Holdings BV has owned the company outright since 2012.

At Liberty’s formation, chairman Kevin Buckley said no other company was selling young sires outside of progeny testing. 

“Now, about 20% of the industry is using the young sire model or hybrid teams that include similar ratios of proven sires.”

Buckley says an uncomplicated approach with relationships at its heart played a large part in Liberty’s success. 

The company started in 1998, when nine farmers and breeders got together to discuss the state of artificial breeding in New Zealand. They believed artificial breeding had got lost in a corporate world and that the rising cost of semen, then at twice the rate of inflation, was a cause for concern in the industry.

Searching for a solution, the nine farmers became foundation shareholders in Liberty Genetics to offer an effective and efficient breeding model for genetic gain in NZ dairy herds. Buckley has chaired the business since it began.

The business model was an elite young sires programme to achieve genetic gain as effectively as proven sires. (A proven sire has had its genetics established through progeny testing which records the production performances of its offspring.)

An elite young sires programme now uses genomic testing to select bulls based on their DNA profile instead of having to wait for the information on their performance based on their progeny (daughters). 

Says Buckley, “Our main concern, and the reason we set up Liberty Genetics, was the big focus on the numbers of bulls being proven in the industry, with no more information passed on to the farmer than would normally be passed on through genomic testing.” 

The original nine shareholders included Friesian breeders Lawrence Satherly, Mark Townshend, Derek Black, Gary Townshend and Simon Gibson; dairy farmers Grant Billington and Jon Holwerda; and consultant Wayne Stachurski. Each held $1000 of shares.

Business came primarily through word of mouth, with the nine shareholders picking up the phone and calling around their networks to establish a customer base.

“It was pretty simple: we rang people, we talked to them, and we built good relationships. It helped too that our salespeople were our shareholders, so they knew what they were on about.”

He says their cooperative approach was key to their success. “We treated our customers the same: whether they had 5000 cows or 500, you got the same service, which was attractive to farmers and still is.” 

130 farms

Liberty Genetics currently has 130 farms on its books in Northland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, Taranaki, Hawke’s Bay, Manawatu, Wairarapa, Canterbury, Otago and Southland.

In 2012, Liberty Genetics was purchased by CRV Holdings BV, becoming its sole shareholder. “CRV Ambreed is very supportive and we’re glad to have the relationship with them that we do,” says Buckley.

“And because we target a different set of farmers than they do, our work complements theirs. “It’s important that we’ve always understood we can’t be all things to everyone. Our intention has always been to be a price-conscious supplier of quality semen, a model that helps dairy farmers reap the benefits of quality semen at a lower cost.”