Andrew's career impact

Andrew Swan is a sheep geneticist who has made major contributions to the development of genetic evaluation systems for the Australian sheep industries since the early 1990’s. These systems have allowed ram breeders to make substantial cumulative genetic progress, which by dissemination to commercial sheep producers has led to substantial improvements in productivity and profitability for individuals and wealth for the Australian economy.

He was a key collaborator in the formation of a single system of analysis for Merino sheep in 2005, MERINOSELECT, which together with LAMBPLAN for non-Merino sheep forms Sheep Genetics, one of the world’s leading genetic evaluations. The significance of this development cannot be understated – since the launch of MERINOSELECT leading Merino ram breeders have been able to double rates of genetic progress with flow on impacts of improved productivity across the sheep industry. Introduction of a single national objective genetic evaluation system for the Merino industry is one of the most significant innovations in agriculture in Australia – Merino sheep contribute to all rural economies across southern Australia, and enabling continuous improvement in production efficiency and profitability is fundamental to maintaining

the viability of these communities. This innovation had been hindered by an extremely conservative Merino stud breeder hierarchy, and strong collaboration, technical excellence, and persistence were essential to achieving this breakthrough.

Since 2007 he has collaborated within the Sheep CRC genetics program, providing research leadership in implementing genomics research findings into MERINOSELECT and LAMBPLAN. This included development of the first software pipeline for producing genomically enhanced breeding values in 2012, theoretical developments related to handling breed diversity in sheep

populations, calculation of breeding value accuracies, estimation of genetic trends, and genomic benchmarking of commercial flocks outside of the MERINOSELECT system (the Sheep CRC Flock Profile service). He has also provided guidance within the Sheep CRC on handling phenotypic data for genomic analyses.

In 2016 Andrew coordinated a team of 15 AGBU researchers to implement “single step” genomic evaluation for sheep in MERINOSELECT and LAMBPLAN and in beef cattle in the BREEDPLAN system. The introduction of single step for large scale routine evaluations has been a landmark achievement for the Australian sheep and beef industries. It establishes a foundation for future increases in genetic progress, and better targeting of important traits which have been too difficult to evaluate in the past. On an international scale, other industries are only now starting to announce implementation of this technology.

He was also responsible for the development of a system of breeding for eating quality in meat sheep in collaboration with the meat science program of the Sheep CRC. This system (the Eating Quality Index) goes hand in hand with the availability of genomically enhanced breeding values to make a compelling case for ram breeders to use genomic information in their breeding programs. The innovation means that it is now possible for the sheep industry to simultaneously improve production efficiency and product eating quality and minimise the risk of decline in product quality. Australian lamb meets very high standards of consumer satisfaction, and this reliability underpins the continually growing domestic and export demand for our lamb, reflected in the continuous growth in total industry value since the early 1990s (growing in real terms at approximately $120m per year). Maintaining consumer satisfaction is fundamental to this success, and the Eating Quality Index is pivotal to this. Although the ingredients have been

in place for a short period of time, industry impact is already in evidence, with improving genetic trends in eating quality.

Since 2022 Andrew has led the development of genetic evaluation systems for both Sheep Genetics and BREEDPLAN for the Australian sheep and beef cattle industries. During this

time, he contributed to and oversaw the adoption of genomic evaluations by 7 Australian beef cattle breed societies, the development of efficient algorithms to calculate accuracy metrics

for estimated breeding values, and developed breeding values for new welfare traits including lambing ease in sheep and docility in beef cattle. In 2023, Andrew led the development of a new model to quantify breeding objectives for profitable and sustainable sheep production, through a process of extensive industry consultation. This model has been used to deliver selection indexes for ranking animals in the MERINOSELECT genetic evaluation system.

He was appointed as Chief Scientist of the Animal Genetics and Breeding Unit in 2022.