and consolidated genetics leaders.

You’re making 2020 breeding decisions. 2025 left $6.7 billion on the table. These 15+ stories show who adapted, who profited, and who got left behind. Which one are you?

<a href="https://rss.com/podcasts/the-bullvine/2421436/">E452 The Year Dairy Lost $6.7 Billion: The Bullvin | RSS.com</a>

$6.7 billion. That’s the high-end estimate of what Holstein inbreeding has already cost U.S. dairies, according to Council on Dairy Cattle Breeding analysis. And here’s what keeps me thinking as we close out 2025: most of the industry’s biggest moves happened while people were arguing about the wrong things.

While breeders debated TPI rankings, inbreeding quietly climbed to 15.2% — a 168% jump from 2010 levels. While everyone celebrated beef-on-dairy premiums of $800 to $1,000 per crossbred calf, replacement heifer costs hit a historic national average of $2,870 per head because there aren’t enough dairy replacements left to go around (USDA Agricultural Marketing Service, November 2025). Regional variation matters here — Midwest averages tend to run $200-400 lower, while California and Texas dairies regularly exceed $3,200.

The stories that captured your attention this year weren’t just interesting profiles or trend pieces. They were warning shots. And if you weren’t paying attention, 2026 is going to catch you off guard.

What follows are the three threads that wove through everything we covered: the people reshaping the business (for better and worse), the animals whose genetics changed what’s possible, and the market forces that don’t care about your feelings or your five-year plan.

Part I: The Architects — Profiles in Vision, Grit, and Some Spectacular Failures

The dairy industry runs on human decisions. Sometimes brilliant ones. Sometimes catastrophically stupid ones. Our most-read profiles this year covered both extremes, and honestly, the failures taught us more than the successes.

The Disruptors Who Delivered

Juan Moreno didn’t just build STgenetics into a 1,800-employee operation spanning 16 countries — he fundamentally rewired how genetics move from bull to barn. The company estimates that roughly 30% of all semen sold globally now uses sex-sorted technology they pioneered (STgenetics company communications, 2025). That’s not market share; that’s infrastructure.

What I find interesting about Moreno isn’t the technology itself but the discipline behind it. When asked about genetic modification, he draws a hard line: “If they don’t want to go any further with genetic modification, why on earth would we get involved with it as an industry? We’re playing with fire by doing that.” He was named World Dairy Expo’s 2025 International Person of the Year for good reason — the guy delivers commercial products that actually work for farmers, not laboratory curiosities.

The pending combination with Select Sires signals something bigger than two companies joining forces. It’s the genetics industry consolidating into fewer, larger players. Whether that’s good for producers in the long term is a question worth asking before it’s too late. When three companies control 70% of the genetics flowing into your herd, you’re not a customer anymore — you’re a captive market.

Read the full profile: Bull in a China Shop: How Juan Moreno Turned the Dairy World Upside Down

The McCarty Family earned World Dairy Expo’s 2025 Dairy Producer of the Year for reasons that should make every mid-sized operation think carefully. They’re running 15,000 cows across four Kansas sites plus another 4,000 at MVP Dairy in Ohio — the world’s largest registered Holstein herd (World Dairy Expo recognition announcement, October 2025). Their processing partnership with Danone means they don’t just produce milk; they control what happens to it.

Let’s be direct here: unless you’ve got Danone’s phone number and access to $50 million in processing infrastructure, this isn’t your playbook. It’s proof that vertical integration wins—and most of us aren’t playing that game. The question nobody’s asking loud enough: is this model actually scalable for the rest of the industry, or are we watching an outlier get celebrated as a template? If you’re running 300 cows and can’t access vertical integration, your playbook is collaboration and niche positioning—not trying to replicate the McCarty model at 1/50th the scale.

Read the full profile: The McCarty Magic: How a Family Farm Became the Dairy Industry’s Brightest Star

David Dyment built AG3 on a philosophy that directly challenges genomic orthodoxy. His principle — “consistency over unpredictability” — sounds simple until you realize he’s betting against the entire direction of the industry. While everyone else chases the next high-TPI sire, Dyment invests in cow families with proven longevity and functional purpose.

“Genomics without performance verification is speculation compounded by more speculation,” he argues. Is he right? The data on genomic prediction accuracy are strong, but so are the data on the increase in inbreeding from the overuse of elite bloodlines. Maybe the smartest play is somewhere between blind faith in numbers and nostalgic attachment to pedigrees. What I’ve noticed in talking with producers is that the herds performing best long-term tend to blend both approaches — using genomics for direction while maintaining maternal line depth for insurance.

Read the complete profile: From Show Ring Legend to Industry Innovator: The David Dyment Story

GenoSource proved what collaboration can accomplish. Eight Iowa farming families pooled resources in 2014 and produced GenoSource Captain, who dominated the #1 TPI position for seven consecutive proof runs — an unprecedented achievement in the genomic era. His December 2024 evaluation reached +3336 GTPI, and following the April 2025 base change, he is now at +3441 TPI (GenoSource official release, April 2025).

Here’s what’s worth stealing from the GenoSource playbook: it’s not AI company genetics or single-breeder brilliance — it’s collective investment producing results that neither could achieve alone. In an era of consolidation where most breeders feel squeezed out, here’s a counter-model that actually works. There’s a lesson there for an industry that often treats cooperation as weakness.

Read the complete profile: From Pasture to Powerhouse: The GenoSource Story

When Ego Beats Judgment

Our historical profiles weren’t all victory laps. The Jack Stookey saga resonated because it exposed how speculation corrupts integrity. His empire inflated on tax incentives and collapsed spectacularly — leaving neighbors bankrupt and creditors empty-handed. The silver lining? The Stookey Elm Park Blackrose cow family survived the bankruptcy and went on to produce modern stars.

But let’s be clear about what the story actually teaches: business models built on speculation rather than productive fundamentals eventually fail. The animals can outlast the bankruptcy, but the people usually don’t recover.

Read the full profile: When Wall Street Invaded the Barn: The Untold Story of Dairy’s Wildest Gold Rush

These aren’t dusty footnotes in breed history. Every time you see a genomic heifer sell for six figures based purely on paper numbers — no milking records, no longevity data, no production verification — you’re watching the same psychology at work. The packaging looks modern. The underlying gamble hasn’t changed.

Part II: The Bloodlines — Animals Who Actually Changed Things

Breeding indexes fluctuate. Rankings shuffle. But certain animals build dynasties that outlast the evaluation system that ranked them.

The Matriarchs Nobody Wanted

Wesswood-HC Rudy Missy’s origin story exposes how expert consensus fails. In 2003, Matt Steiner bought her by phone for $8,100 after a room full of professionals walked away — they dismissed her for an “unbalanced rump.” That contrarian bet produced the 2014 Global Cow of the Year, bulls like Seagull-Bay Supersire and Mountfield SSI Dcy Mogul, and genetic influence worth hundreds of millions in global semen sales.

The uncomfortable question: how many Missys got culled because they didn’t fit conventional type expectations? Every breeder has walked past an animal that didn’t match the scorecard of the moment. Steiner trusted his eye over the room’s opinion. Most of us don’t.

Read the full story: The Room Went Quiet. Everyone Left. Then an $8,100 Phone Call Changed Holstein History Forever

Stookey Elm Park Blackrose emerged from Jack Stookey’s financial collapse — literally salvaged from bankruptcy proceedings by breeder Louis Prange for $4,500. What started as a distressed-sale heifer became the foundation of a red-and-white dynasty producing modern show-winners like Ladyrose Caught Your Eye. Sometimes the best genetics need a second chance. Sometimes they need someone paying attention when everyone else has moved on.

Read the full story: When Financial Disaster Breeds Genetic Gold: The Blackrose Story That Changed Everything

Comestar Laurie Sheik built something even more remarkable: four different millionaire bulls from a single cow family, with a descendant winning Holstein Canada’s Cow of the Year award 27 years after Laurie Sheik herself won the inaugural honor in 1995 (Holstein Canada records). That’s durability across multiple breeding eras, multiple evaluation systems, and multiple generations of breeders. Consistency like that doesn’t happen by accident.

Read the full story: The Cow That Built an Empire: Comestar Laurie Sheik’s Unstoppable Genetic Legacy

The Sires Who Shaped Eras

Sire	Era	What He Actually Did	Why It Still Matters
Johanna Rag Apple Pabst	1920s	Every registered Holstein alive today descends from him. Proved elite type could combine with high butterfat	Set the template for “complete” cow breeding that still drives component premiums today
Pawnee Farm Arlinda Chief	1960s-70s	Revolutionized milk production economics, contributing nearly 15% of the breed’s modern genome	Created both the production gains and the inbreeding concentration, we’re still managing
GenoSource Captain	2020s	Seven consecutive proof runs at #1 TPI (+3441 TPI as of April 2025)	Proving ground for whether genomic selection delivers on its promises

Part III: The Battlefield — Forces That Don’t Care About Your Feelings

Individual brilliance means nothing if market forces crush your margins. This year’s coverage exposed structural changes that demand response, not just observation. With the 17% decline in licensed dairy herds we’ve seen since late 2023, the survivors aren’t just milking more cows—they’re managing thinner margins with surgical precision.

The Beef-on-Dairy Reckoning

Data from the American Farm Bureau (February 2025) shows 72% of U.S. dairy farms now use beef genetics, up from essentially zero a decade ago. CattleFax reports crossbred calf production exploded from 50,000 head in 2014 to 3.22 million in 2024, with projections reaching 6 million by 2026.

The economics are obvious: three-day-old beef-on-dairy calves deliver $800 to $1,000 cash immediately — no rearing costs, no death loss risk, no 22-month wait for first lactation. Purina’s 2024 Beef-on-Dairy Survey found 80% of dairy farmers receive premiums for beef-on-dairy calves versus straight Holstein bull calves.

Here’s the problem nobody wants to discuss openly: you’re trading your genetic future for today’s cash.

Replacement heifer prices hit that $2,870 national average — historic highs driven partly by the same strategy everyone’s celebrating. The dairy herd’s replacement ratio dropped to 27 dairy heifers expected to calve for every 100 cows, according to the USDA January 2025 cattle inventory data. We’re eating our seed corn and calling it smart business.

I’m not saying beef-on-dairy is wrong. Used strategically on your bottom 20-30% of cows — the ones you’ve genomically verified as your poorest performers — it makes complete sense. But if you’re breeding beef on anything that moves because the calf check feels good this month, you’d better have a plan for where future replacements come from. Because right now, the math doesn’t add up. You’ll either pay $3,000+ per head for someone else’s genetics, or you’ll be short cows when you need to expand.

The Inbreeding Tax Nobody’s Billing You For

Holstein inbreeding in U.S. herds increased from about 5.7% in 2010 to 15.2% by 2020, according to CDCB trend data. Industry projections suggest 18-22% by 2030, approaching triple the 6.25% threshold where inbreeding depression becomes economically significant.

Each 1% increase in inbreeding costs roughly $23-25 off a cow’s lifetime Net Merit, plus measurable hits to fertility and productive life (USDA-ARS Net Merit revision, 2025). Have you noticed more infertility issues, more metabolic problems in fresh cows, more early culling pressure lately? Inbreeding is part of why.

Your herd’s numbers may differ based on your genetic base and breeding decisions. But the trend line doesn’t lie. Case studies from extension programs have documented 500-cow herds that reduced inbreeding from 13% to 8% over three years, seeing $75,000-94,000 in improved lifetime cow value — roughly $150-188 per cow in the herd. If you’re not looking at inbreeding coefficients on your genetic reports — really looking, not just glancing past them — start this week. Not next month. This week. Use your sire search filters to set maximum projected inbreeding at 6% or lower.

The Select Sires/STgenetics combination will concentrate breeding decisions in fewer corporate hands. That’s not inherently bad — consolidation often drives efficiency and accelerates innovation. But it concentrates genetic control precisely when genetic diversity needs protection. When three or four major players control most of the elite semen flowing into North American herds, who’s responsible for maintaining the genetic breadth the breed needs long-term?

The Trade War That Won’t End

President Trump’s been beating the same drum on Canadian dairy since 2018, and honestly, it’s not going to change anytime soon. Canada’s supply management system — production quotas that match domestic demand, minimum prices that ensure farmer profitability, and import tariffs as high as 298% — creates stability that Canadian producers rely on and market access that American producers want.

Here’s my take, and I know it’ll generate some emails: American producers might want to spend less time attacking supply management and more time asking why their own system leaves them so vulnerable to price volatility. The data tells a story — Canadian dairy farm debt-to-asset ratios have remained more stable over the past decade, even as U.S. operations faced multiple margin crises (Farm Credit Canada and USDA ERS comparative data, 2015-2024).

The policy question isn’t whether supply management is “fair” — that’s a political argument designed to generate heat rather than light. The practical question is: what system actually keeps family-scale dairy farms viable? Because whatever we’re doing in the U.S. isn’t working for most producers with fewer than 1,000 cows.

What this means for your operation depends entirely on which side of the border you’re on and how political winds shift—budget for volatility. Lock in prices when you can. And stop expecting trade negotiations to solve structural problems in your milk check.

What This Actually Means for Your 2026 Plans

I could wrap this up with inspirational language about “charting your own course” and “building for future generations.” But you don’t read The Bullvine for platitudes.

Here’s what the stories actually teach — and what you should act on before spring breeding decisions:

1. Track your inbreeding levels — this week, not someday. Pull your genetic reports and look at the actual inbreeding coefficients. Herds that reduced from 13% to 8% have documented $150-$188 per cow in improved lifetime value. Set your sire search filters to cap projected inbreeding at 6%. If your genetics supplier can’t easily provide this data, that’s a problem worth solving.

2. Use beef-on-dairy strategically, not reflexively. Genomically test everything. Target your verified bottom 20-30% of genetic performers for beef crosses—not random animals, and definitely not your genetic core. The $400+ premium per targeted crossbred calf matters, but it matters less than having quality replacements available in 2028 when heifer prices could hit $4,000.

3. Study the winners honestly — including what doesn’t translate. The McCartys, the founders of GenoSource, and Moreno all built systems that don’t depend on a single strategy or market. Vertical integration, collaboration, and diversification aren’t buzzwords — they’re survival architecture. But McCarty-level vertical integration requires resources most operations don’t have. GenoSource-style collaboration might be accessible. Figure out which lessons actually apply to your scale and your region.

4. Diversify your genetics suppliers before you become a captive buyer. With consolidation accelerating, now is the time to establish relationships with multiple semen providers. Don’t wait until three companies control your only options.

5. Learn more from the failures than the victories. Every fraud and bankruptcy we covered started with someone believing the hype over the numbers. If a deal sounds too good — whether it’s a genomic heifer selling for $150,000 with no production data or a marketing program promising guaranteed premiums — it probably is. The packaging changes. The underlying gamble doesn’t.

The ground is shifting. The question is whether you’re moving with it or waiting to see where you land.

The Complete 2025 Reading List

Here are all the feature articles referenced in this year-end analysis:

Breeder & Industry Profiles:

Legendary Animals:

Economics & Strategy:

Executive Summary

$6.7 billion. That’s what Holstein inbreeding has already cost U.S. dairies — and most producers haven’t even noticed. This year-end deep-dive pulls together our 16 most-read stories into the three forces that defined 2025: the disruptors who saw the shift coming (Juan Moreno now controls 30% of global sex-sorted semen; GenoSource’s eight-family collaboration produced the breed’s dominant bull), the legendary cows whose genetics outlasted their owners’ bankruptcies, and the market math everyone’s ignoring — 72% beef-on-dairy adoption, $2,870 replacement heifers, inbreeding climbing toward 18% by 2030. We celebrate the winners, but we spend more time on the failures, because Jack Stookey’s collapse and the Meadolake fraud tell you more about survival than any success story. The uncomfortable truth: you’re probably making 2020 breeding decisions while 2025 leaves money on the table. If spring genetics purchases are on your calendar, start here.

Join the Revolution!

Join over 30,000 successful dairy professionals who rely on Bullvine Weekly for their competitive edge. Delivered directly to your inbox each week, our exclusive industry insights help you make smarter decisions while saving precious hours every week. Never miss critical updates on milk production trends, breakthrough technologies, and profit-boosting strategies that top producers are already implementing. Subscribe now to transform your dairy operation’s efficiency and profitability—your future success is just one click away.

Search

Archive for and consolidated genetics leaders.

The Year Dairy Lost $6.7 Billion: The Bullvine’s Top 15+ Articles of 2025