Tohoku Agricultural Research Center, NARO

Beef Cattle Production Group

From the two perspectives of breeding and fattening management in beef cattle, the Beef Cattle Production Group seeks to reduce labor requirements and costs in domestic beef production.

In recent years, researchers engaged in the breeding management of beef cattle have sought to develop not only techniques for increasing conception rates and shortening reproductive cycles, but also labor-saving breeding management techniques that can appropriately deal with increases in the numbers of cattle bred. We seek to improve applicability and utility at various breeding scales and management types by rectifying and improving estrous monitoring systems developed so far and by developing technologies for high-precision, efficient selection of cows after parturition.

By utilizing these techniques, we aim to improve beef cattle productivity by promoting the efficient use of breeding cows and by rationalizing and reducing the labor associated with breeding management, which becomes more complex with expanding breeding scales.

In the management of fattening beef cattle, due to increasing global demand for cereals and environmental issues, there is emerging demand for local cyclical, low-cost beef fattening techniques that do not depend on imported grain feed. We seek to develop techniques to reduce costs by shortening fattening periods while reducing usage of imported grain feed by means of fattening beef cattle on high-nutrient self-supplied feed. Simultaneously, we will clarify the flesh quality of meat from cattle which was fed with high-nutrient self-supplied feed.

These techniques will create a technological system for efficient, low-cost beef production and lead to safe, reliable domestic beef production.

Japanese Black cattle fed with self-supplying feed (above)
and Japanese Black cow and calf (below)

Group Leader

SHIBA Nobuya

Group Members

Centers・Institutes