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New project shares Australian beef science to support South African farmers
Vivien Lin
A new project is teaching Australia’s world-class beef knowledge to South African smallholder cattle farmers.
The High Value Beef project – funded by the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research and led by former chief executive of the Beef CRC , Professor Heather Burrow – is using science from the Meat Standards Australia (MSA) paddock-to-plate grading system to help African smallholders meet strict market specifications.
Farmers who can reliably produce beef satisfying these specifications will then be able to sell their beef as “free range” through Woolworths South Africa and earn a 15 to 18 per cent premium.
According to MSA-guided taste-testing panels, smallholder cattle can offer the same or better eating traits than feedlotted commercial cattle. However, South African feedlots are heavy users of hormone growth promotants, which toughen meat and degrade their eating quality.
The MSA eating quality standards prescribe the cattle management required to ensure that beef has the greatest likelihood of meeting grading criteria.
To fulfil the target free range market specifications, African smallholders will need to make changes such as reducing stocking rates of their farms, using planted pastures or supplementary feed through winter and selling off surplus stock much sooner than they usually would.
“Even from a pragmatic business perspective, smallholder farmers normally couldn’t make the required changes because they would cost too much,” says Professor Burrow. “But in this case, they will be more than compensated by the Woolworths premium.
“But first we have to get enough smallholders prepared to change their management to provide a consistent supply of beef to Woolworths. If we succeed in this, it really could be revolutionary — not just for the smallholder farmers we are working with now, but for smallholders across other provinces, whether they are producing cattle or other commodities.”
The High Value Beef Project may also produce unexpected returns for Australian agriculture.
“To bring these farmers into a specifications-driven production system, we have to design cultural programs that help farmers change their behaviour,” says Professor Burrow. “What seems at first glance to be a business challenge really is a cultural challenge.”
These cultural obstacles have parallels with the barriers to adopting innovation in Australian agriculture.
Psychological profiling has shown a majority of South African farmers will only embrace change if there is adequate incentive to do so. Australian farmers have a very similar industry profile, meaning they must be persuaded to adopt new strategies.
To develop programs that will help the project’s farmers overcome personal and cultural resistance to change, Professor Burrow has recruited a range of specialists from the University of New England.
“If we’re successful in Africa, we see potential to bring these interventions into Australian rural research and development extension programs to speed up local adoption of innovation,” she says.
You can find out more about the High Value Beef Project by watching this video.
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Trace minerals are required for optimal growth, reproduction, and immunity. Optimising trace mineral status relying solely on oral supplements across a herd may fail because of variation in individual intake and reduced absorption due to antagonism of other ration components and minerals. The use of injectable trace mineral supplements has been associated with positive reproductive outcomes including improved conception rate, increased odds of pregnancy and greater final in calf rate. A study conducted on 2,168 dairy cows, administered injectable trace minerals, four weeks prior to calving and again four weeks prior to the start of mating showed treated animals had a 3.3 per cent greater final in-calf rate, and a reduced time from start of mating to conception, compared to control animals 1 . The Importance of B12 Dr Carl Eden, Technical Services Veterinarian with Boehringer Ingelheim says “Vitamin B12 is sometimes referred to as a ‘super vitamin’ because it is only required in very small amounts but vital to many essential metabolic pathways. However, demand for B12 can vary considerably during the year and we see serum levels of B12 fall at critical times, such as the first few months after calving.” Vitamin B12 contains cobalt, so deficiency in cobalt can lead to deficiency in vitamin B12 because ruminants get most of their B12 as a byproduct of ruminal fermentation where the bacteria in their rumen assemble B12 from cobalt for use by the cow. Sub-optimal trace mineral and vitamin B12 status at calving, mating, and drying off has been shown to negatively impact growth, reproduction, and immunity. Using a trace mineral injectable containing vitamin B12 can improve trace mineral and vitamin B12 status at these critical times. Marks-Min with Vitamin B12 – The Evidence In the largest trace element study to date, Marks-Min Injectable Trace Mineral with Vitamin B12 demonstrated remarkable results when compared to a reference trace mineral injection. “Given the differences between Marks-Min and other products on the market, we wanted to generate a compelling data set to demonstrate how effective it was compared to the pioneer product. We entrusted this work to a third-party research company” says Dr Eden. “We chose farms that were at the top of their game from a reproductive perspective. We made sure that the farms had no evidence of trace element or vitamin B12 deficiencies or excess.” Across all outcomes of interest, Marks-Min demonstrated clear non-inferiority when compared to the reference product. Outcomes measured included submission, pregnancy and conception rates, and six week in-calf rate. Marks-Min demonstrated it is highly suited as an alternative treatment to the reference product. Reference: 1. Hawkins, D., and B. V. S. Franklin. New Zealand Dairy Veterinarians Newsletter 24 (2007): 12-16 Company website: livestockfirst.com.au Company email address: CustomerCare.Australia@boehringer-ingelheim.com Company video: https://vimeo.com/1138807630?fl=pl&fe=cm
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