Pathways modeled for lumpy skin coming into Australia
Lumpy skin disease is not yet close enough to Australia to 'blow in' but Australian epidemiologists are flat out modeling likely pathways in an effort to put livestock industries on the front foot.
National Animal Disease Preparedness Coordinator Dr Chris Parker, from the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said given the disease was spread by vectors, its march across the globe would continue.
Australian work with weather patterns was attempting to determine the most likely places it might land on our soil, he said.
"There is a range of other things to consider in this space - what stocking densities would have to exist in the north to see the establishment of LSD, and indeed foot and mouth disease," he said.
"We also need to understand the survivability of the LSD virus on the mouth part of the biting insect, and the probability of insects traveling in a cyclone."
Meanwhile, Australia's dairy industry is about to embark on a study looking at the effect of pasturisation on LSD and its effectiveness as a kill point of the disease.
Dairy Australia's Charles McElhone said this would be an important piece of work that would play a role feeding into the market access process in the event of an outbreak.
While producers have expressed fears about LSD reaching Papua New Guinea, Dr Parker said there was not a great number of cattle there, so FMD reaching PNG would be more of a concern, given the pig population.
It has become very clear that Australian farmers themselves are the front line to defending against FMD.
Mr Parker said the most likely pathway for FMD entering Australia was via infected meat or infected animals, either of which would then need to make contact with a susceptible animal in Australia
Red Meat Advisory Council chair John McKillop said Australia has close to zero risk via the live animal trade.
Swill feeding of pigs and people who have been to countries where there is FMD returning to farms and not following appropriate biosecurity measures were the main risks, he said.
Source: Shan Goodwin, Queensland Country Life, 12 October 2022
What the market really wants in a dairy-beef carcase: Greenham’s Jess Loughland
GROWTH, yield and eating quality are the key areas where dairy-beef breeders have the most opportunity to pull genetic levers that will drive carcase value in the beef sector.
This message came from experienced livestock supply chain manager Jess Loughland at this month's Growing Beef from Dairy conference, hosted by Dairy Australia and held at Attwood in Victoria.
Speakers from around the world repeatedly spoke about the exceptionally positive traits coming from the dairy animal around eating quality.
Ms Loughland supported those sentiments but said yield and growth were probably the areas where there was less confidence in parties to invest in dairy-beef animals year-in and year-out.
In her role with southern Australian processor Greenham, Ms Loughland looks after natural beef programs, producer engagement and supply chain sustainability initiatives.
Greenhams has been in the beef industry for more than 150 years. The family started with small butcher shops in Melbourne and today runs three beef export facilities in Victoria and Tasmania.
"When we look at developing supply chains, we've heard many advocate the market-first approach," Ms Loughland said.
"That is about moving away from saying we have product so where can we find a home for it, towards looking at where there might be an opportunity with high value markets.
"Through doing that, there are some real opportunities to develop strong, viable and sustainable pathways for cattle of dairy origin in the beef sector."
In terms of carcase value, there was never one over-riding driver - it was a multifaceted business, Ms Loughland said.
Consistently high eating quality is, of course, the holy grail in high value markets but in saying that we have to recognise Australian beef is the most expensive in the world at the moment, she said.
"We have the most expensive cattle costs. Historically we've run at a 25 per cent discount to the United States but we are now sitting at a 17pc premium," Ms Loughland said.
"That means that processors have to look, on a global basis, at how we can extract every last piece of consumer value out of the products we are selling to sustain those high prices."
So while meat quality is important in keeping consumers coming back, other factors such as volume, raising claims, product presentation and branding also play a role.
The place of raising claims is less about saying any one production system is good or bad but rather identifying areas where a consumer may be looking for a particular thing and be willing to pay a premium for it, according to Ms Loughland.
"Dairy-beef could really capture a high value niche in this area," she said.
"For example, in the US where such a high focus is placed on long-fed beef, for a consumer in that market seeking a more natural product there would be the opportunity to extract a premium."
So how do these drivers translate back into genetics?
From a dairy perspective, the focus has been around calving ease and gestation length to maintain profitability but we must also start looking at what is of value to the grower, the finisher and the processor.
Animals that grow faster can provide greater returns to the grower and finisher, and also produce a finished product with a lower carbon footprint, Ms Loughland said.
Animals that yield better in the processing plant provide more kilograms of saleable meat per kilogram of liveweight paid for.
So for growth, estimated breeding values on 400 and 600-day growth are key and then from a yield perspective, it is eye muscle area and retail beef yield.
Source: Shan Goodwin, Farmonline National, 26 September 2022
Ground is shifting on bobby calves: Dairy Australia’s David Nation
THE ground is shifting on what society will accept from milk producers in terms of where their bobby calves go. Promises are coming from all dairy nations.
Ireland's calf welfare charter guarantees no healthy calf euthanasia; in Denmark there will be no euthanasia by 2022, in the United Kingdom the same from 2023 and in New Zealand the promise is all calves will enter the market from June 2023.
For that reason, a shared future with beef is now a big part of a sustainable dairy business, according to David Nation, the managing director of the sector's big service provider Dairy Australia.
Speaking at the Australian Wagyu Association's annual conference in Melbourne, Mr Nation said the forces at play driving the two livestock sectors together were real.
"We have a challenge with our calf pathways and there is firm commitment by the whole industry, worldwide, to make change," he said.
As many as 60 per cent of future calves on dairies will be dairy beef and it will be expected they have a viable path forward, profitable for every farmer along the supply chain, Mr Nation said.
While it was expected Australia's dairy herd would be entirely bred from sexed semen within the next two years, that wasn't the answer. Surplus calves will still need a viable pathway.
Mr Nation presented a breakdown of where Australia's surplus dairy calves go now which showed 9pc were unviable and a very large portion were slaughtered as calves.
"We have to shrink that 9pc wedge and there is big opportunity in shifting that slaughtered wedge. We are continually working on genetic improvement for calf vitality and survival and improved management on-farm but the key is to grow that dairy-beef sector."
Data shows that bobby calf slaughter goes down as the Eastern Young Cattle Indicator goes up but Mr Nation said that was a 'mirage'.
"When you're making a decision of whether or not to keep a dairy calf based on the current EYCI price, you're out of sync by two years. It's not working so we have to move away from that," he said.
The answer was in relationships and partnerships with beef operations and building long-term, profitable pathways for dairy beef calves year-on-year.
The futures of dairy and Wagyu will only get closer with time, Mr Nation said.
Look over the fence
There's plenty the beef industry can learn from looking over the fence at dairy's 'decade of cow improvement', Mr Nation said.
"We have invested across soils, forages, animals, climate and more but if I had to nail down one part of our production system where the most change has been made it's clearly cow improvement," he said.
"The reality is for quite a long period of time up until 2010 there was investment but the benefits hadn't really taken off. In fact, in 2010, there was a case for saying that's enough investment in genetics. For all the gains made, there were losses too."
However, a plethora of technologies matured in the one decade 'in a way that was unheard of in our hundred years of breeding', Mr Nation said.
Today, a hair sample turned around in four weeks can give a dairy farmer an estimated breeding value with 80pc accuracy.
"We've reached the tipping point where people use these with confidence," Mr Nation said.
The breeding values work has seen world-firsts for Australia too - in heat tolerance and feed saved (net feed index).
Australia was the first dairy country in world to introduce feed saved as a trait for the whole of industry to use and it is now plugged into global networks.
"When a dairy farmer gets a genetic evaluation on feed saved today, that information carries a lot of historic beef information too," Mr Nation said.