Abstract:

This paper introduces the current development stage of China's beef cattle industry, which is undergoing a critical transition from an extensive, resource-driven growth model to an intensive, efficiency- and value-oriented development model. During this transitional period, the industry faces three major challenges: Firstly, indigenous breeds exhibit significantly inferior production traits such as growth rate and meat yield, despite their excellent adaptability and roughage tolerance; Secondly, heavy dependence on foreign core germplasm, especially for premium beef cattle breeds, posing risks to breed security; Thirdly, poor connectivity along the industrial chain—from breeding, multiplication, and fattening to slaughtering and processing—which hinders the efficient translation of genetic gain into market value. To address these issues, this paper first analyzes the diverse composition of China's beef cattle genetic resources, categorizing them into three groups: indigenous breeds, developed breeds, and introduced breeds, and identifies their respective market orientations and developmental bottlenecks. Consequently, the paper proposes a market-oriented, differentiated genetic improvement strategy: for indigenous breeds, implement "characteristic conservation and exploitation" to unlock their unique genetic resources such as flavor and stress resistance; for developed breeds, pursue "continuous performance improvement" using modern breeding techniques to gradually enhance growth and carcass traits; for introduced breeds, carry out "localized adaptation" through crossbreeding optimization and selection to better suit China's rearing conditions and market demands. Furthermore, the paper points out that the core pathway to realizing this strategy lies in establishing a collaborative "government-industry-university-research-application" joint breeding system that breaks down institutional and regional barriers to integrate breeding data, technologies, and germplasm resources. The study proposes deepening the application of genomic selection and intelligent phenotyping technologies to significantly improve breeding efficiency and accuracy. Meanwhile, it emphasizes intensifying joint breeding efforts to create across-herd and across-region genetic linkages, and ultimately leveraging branding strategies to convert genetic advantages into market premiums. Analysis shows that this model forms a sustainable closed-loop of "market return → breeding investment → genetic progress → premium products → higher return", thereby systematically enhancing the independent core competitiveness of China's beef cattle breeding industry.

Key words: Beef cattle, Genetic improvement, Breeding chip, Seed industry revitalization, Joint breeding, Genomic selection