THE speaking program at this year’s Harvey Beef Gate 2 Plate Challenge field day provided something for everyone, with the latest technologies in the beef industry showcased, through to retail requirements for beef and a chef’s perspective on where consumer tastes could be heading in the future.
Complementing the jam-packed speaking program was the opportunity for attendees to speak to industry representatives who manned an abundance of trade displays covering all facets of livestock production.
Using genomics to drive your business.
Leading the way as the first speaker of the day, Zoetis Genetics business manager for Australia and New Zealand Daniel Abernethy took to the stage to discuss the company’s latest developments in the genetic’s field.
Mr Abernethy said an awareness of genetics and genomics, in particular, was increasing in Australia’s beef industry.
He kicked off his presentation by saying genetics work and that the animal is the production unit and producers should embrace the “and”.
By this he meant that buying a bull for your beef herd was a critical decision and all factors should be taken into account.
“Genetic evaluation allows you to understand the value of that animal,” Mr Abernethy said.
“I hear a lot of people saying ‘I can’t do genomic testing because I need to improve my pastures or my animal health program isn’t where I want it to be, so I will do all that first and then look at genetics’.
“This is not an ‘or’ discussion, this is an ‘and’ discussion.
“You can make a poor decision or a good decision, so why not use technology to make a good decision?”
Mr Abernethy said Zoetis had developed three core genomic products.
The first is SireTrace, which is a test to work out parentage of your stock.
“The advantages of this product apply where producers are using multi-sire matings, or you want to work out which bulls are actually performing on your farm,” Mr Abernethy said.
“If you have a large production system this will take details about calving accuracy and matching up dams to calves.
“It is a straightforward test, that is effective in underpinning large production systems in sheep and cattle operations.
“It is used a lot in New Zealand in large sheep systems for mothering up very large flocks of ewes to lambs.”
The next genetic offering is HornPoll, which is a test that can be undertaken to look at the rating of an animal if is polled, scurred or horned.
The HornPoll test is used to determine whether an animal is true polled or is a carrier of horned genetics.
“It is useful to make breeding decisions,” Mr Abernethy said.
“This simple yet effective DNA test allows for the identification of genetically polled animals and ultimately the removal of horned animals from the herd.”
The third test Mr Abernethy spoke about was the Angusi50k and a new genomic selection tool, Angus Heifer Select.
The i50K product uses a low density DNA test to assess the genetic makeup of black Angus cattle at more than 19,000 locations across the animal’s genome (known as SNPs or single nucleotide polymorphisms) to obtain a genetic profile for the animal, which is used to calculate a genomic prediction of an animal’s genetic merit.
The i50k product can be used in conjunction with EBVs of many traits to better predict the genetic potential of animals.
The Angus Heifer Select tool was released in October 2017 and is used to better inform the selection of replacement heifers for commercial Angus breeders.
Angus HeiferSELECT is available to commercial members of Angus Australia who are using registered Angus bulls, further adding to the value of utilising registered Angus bulls in commercial Angus breeding programs.
Livestock tracking systems
One of the more cutting edge presentations on the day came from Matthew Peterson, who is a founder of Iotag, as well as being a veterinarian and cattle producer based in Finley, New South Wales.
Iotag stands for the “internet of things applied to ag” and is all about solving old problems with new technology.
Iotag had a practical demonstration of its product within this year’s Harvey Beef Gate 2 Plate Challenge when it sent over GPS tracking collars to be placed on eight animals that were taking part in the challenge.
The collars were placed on four weaned animals and four unweaned animals, to track distance covered in the feedlot by these cattle.
Iotag loaned the Willyung feedlot a LoRaWAN (long range wide area network) base station that enabled a LoRa wireless network to be set up that has been running for more than a month.
Dr Peterson said the collars collected GPS points every hour from the cattle that wore the collars.
“The committee was interested in weaned versus unweaned cattle coming into the feedlot,” he said.
“We only tagged a small number of cattle so it is hard to make real conclusions out of it, other than to say that if we are invited back in years to come we would like to do it on a larger scale and include things such as entry weights, exit weights, health events and carcase quality – so we could prove it out better than we did.
“One thing that I was fascinated with was that the animals that were weaned consistently walked a lot more than the animals that were unweaned.
“I would suggest this is to do with curiosity.
“When animals feel comfortable, they are not stressed and they tend to be curious and walk around more.”
Dr Peterson said a wide area could be covered using the LoRaWAN technology.
“Because it operates on radio frequency, you don’t have the challenges of poor mobile service,” he said.
“It has good coverage and can operate on a 15-30 kilometre radius, so most farming operations would be adequately covered by one base station.”
Dr Peterson said these technologies provide the capability to monitor water, quad bikes, machinery and personnel remotely as well as manage grazing rotations and pasture utilisation.
In the medium to long-term, Iotag aims to leverage this technology for even more advanced and beneficial cases such as detecting when cows are in heat, spawning off “remote calving alerts” in the event a cow has calving difficulty in the bush and providing warnings when cattle wander off into sensitive riparian zones.
“Farmers can then view the location of their stock on a phone, computer or tablet in real time,” Dr Peterson said.
“They are also able to access advanced analyses of historic data towards better stock and pasture management.”
What happens on farm makes a difference.
Meat and Livestock Australia WA representative David Beatty provided a run down on certain things that can be carried out on farm that can help the red meat industry.
Mr Beatty had just returned to WA after running MLA’s Middle East office.
He touched on three areas that centred on this, including market access, brand Australia and MSA and animal welfare.
“When we work in an international office, such as the Middle East which is a massive importer of food, we put a lot of thought into where we spend our marketing dollars,” he said.
“Two areas for this include market access and marketing and promotion.
“In terms of market access, we break it down into two pillars - one is economic access and the other is technical access.
“Economic access includes supporting things such as free trade agreements and government-to-government interaction.
“We will support industry to provide the necessary information to feed up into those negotiations as to how important our red meat is and what the benefits will be for free trade.
“In the country we are more involved in technical support to make it easier for people to trade or do business in that country in order to reduce costs and improve efficiencies.”
Mr Beatty said a key message when working in overseas markets was Australia’s reputation for producing clean, green produce.
“The integrity of Australian systems is very important, our farmers, our biosecurity, we are an island nation, we are disease-free and we have systems that can be trusted,” he said.
“These things are so important when we are working on market access and a lot of these things start with the farmer.”
Business development and brand building is worked on through marketing and promotion.
“Depending on the country that we are in or the markets we are working in, we will split the budget accordingly,” Mr Beatty said.
“In the Middle East, for example, we focused on business development, things such as new business, new importers and taking market share off our competitors.
“The other branch is brand building. We talk about the True Aussie brand which gives us a more global approach.
“We talk about farmers and farms where animals are produced and the integrity of how that animal is produced.
“We also educate people around what they are buying and why.”
Mr Beatty said MLA invests a lot of money on working closely with importers of Australian beef and training and educating them on what they are buying and the price points they are paying.
“We also work with the food service industry and young chefs to make sure they have the right product and recipes for what they want to provide,” he said.
“We also do a lot of training at retail level with butchers so they have the confidence and the trust in Australian product to be able to then on sell to their customers.”
Mr Beatty finished his presentation by discussing eating quality and what the consumer perception of this.
“Thirty eight per cent of people in some of our survey work still find it difficult to buy beef to the quality they desire,” he said.
“Fifty seven per cent of people find it difficult to predict tenderness and 81pc believe price is a poor indicator of quality and more than 90pc thought fat equalled poor quality.
“So consumers want to be consistently satisfied.
“On farm, producers can use an MSA index to benchmark their cattle going to market.
“There are a whole lot of factors and inputs into an MSA index which allows you to predict a carcase eating quality.
“Three on-farm inputs that I want to focus on include marbling and genetics influence marbling, so your genetic choices play a part in that and you also have to have the nutrition to enable this as well.
“Ossification is another one, where you want to try and use animals that reach target weights quickly with limited interruptions on the way.
“The third one is animal handling, which is not rocket science.
“If you have good temperament, nice, quiet good-doing animals you reduce your incidence of dark cutting and you are going to get a better product and the processor is going to get a better product.”
