Peggy Coffeen interviews Robert Chicoine, World Dairy Expo’s 2026 International Person of the Year, in a collaboration with The Dairy Show. Chicoine recounts how a childhood fascination sparked by Holstein Canada’s journal led him from a dairy farm background to university, a summer at Quebec’s AI center, and a career developing a young sire proving program starting in 1966.
He describes advancing data-driven sire selection through herd-mate comparisons, selecting influential Holstein bulls including Hanoverhill Starbuck and Craiglen Sevens Senator, and helping form the Semex Alliance in 1997 to strengthen Canada’s global genetics reach. Chicoine reflects on major industry innovations—frozen semen, sexed semen, genomics, IVF, and embryo freezing—notes rapid genomic-era progress and concerns about inbreeding, and shares leadership lessons on foresight and building strong teams.
This episode has been brought to you in collaboration with World Dairy Expo and the Dairy Show Podcast.
Save the dates for the 2026 World Dairy Expo taking place September 29 – October 2, 2026.
Learn more at https://worlddairyexpo.com/.
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