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Sharing of Genomic Information in the Beef Industry's Seedstock Sector
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- Author / Creator
- Sultanov, Adilbek
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Recent advances in genomics have revolutionized selective breeding in many agriculturally important animal species such as dairy cattle, poultry, and pork. However, the adoption of genomic selection in the beef industry has been slower for reasons such as the existence of multiple breeds, the poor extent of phenotyping, lack of use of artificial insemination, and lower profit margins. Sharing genomic data between Breed Associations has been considered a solution and some information sharing platforms have emerged. Information sharing can also support the declining beef demand by improving meat quality. However, information sharing also makes BAs compete on product consistency, correlates their strategies, and increases signal variability.
Our aim in this thesis is to analyze the viability of IS to individual BAs in the seedstock sector. We use the study of oligopolistic competition under uncertainty to develop a game-theoretic model. Two models are proposed. In the basic specification, we consider the cases of full information sharing versus no information sharing. In the next specification, we allow for coalitional information sharing where breed associations can share in a coalition.
In the basic model, we found that in general, information sharing is less likely to occur when information is valuable to the breed association - either for improving the quality of the trait or the production decision. Second, we found that BAs with a large market size will not share information in a market with close substitutes. Finally, we found that information sharing increases profitability in expectation but makes the profit less predictable. One implication of this result is that Full Information Sharing may happen eventually as BAs have a better prior.
In the extension of the model, we found that coalitional information sharing will prevail for most values of market differentiation, except when BAs sell very strong or weak substitutes. This implies that once coalitions are established, it is hard to achieve full information sharing. Another implication is that the presence of IS coalitions introduces beef product differentiation in terms of quality.
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- Graduation date
- Fall 2021
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- Type of Item
- Thesis
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- Degree
- Master of Science
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- License
- This thesis is made available by the University of Alberta Libraries with permission of the copyright owner solely for non-commercial purposes. This thesis, or any portion thereof, may not otherwise be copied or reproduced without the written consent of the copyright owner, except to the extent permitted by Canadian copyright law.