Girolando

In rural Brazil in the 1970s, the average milk yield of dairy cows was less than per lactation. Most dairy cattle were cross-breeds of European (taurus) and Asian (indicus) types, bred by natural reproduction – artificial insemination was little used; to maintain production, bulls of both types were required, placing a cost burden on farms. At a meeting in 1977 at – the dairy research station of the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária in Coronel Pacheco, in Minas Gerais – the decision was taken to develop taurindicine hybrid bulls which might take the place of the bulls in use at that time. A breed association was formed in Uberaba in 1978, the , usually abbreviated to . A programme of directed cross-breeding, , was launched in the same year by the , as the Brazilian agriculture ministry was then known. == Characteristics ==

The proportion of the two constituent breeds of the hybrid was initially fixed at 3/8 Gyr and 5/8 Holstein; in the twenty-first century, the proportion of Holstein may vary from 1/4 to 7/8. == References ==