NORTHERN Gulf graziers are being urged to rethink stocking rates, as new evidence shows less cattle can improve land condition as well as margins.

For the past two decades, monitoring by the Department of Primary Industries and Gulf Savannah NRM across Queensland’s Northern Gulf region has shown a consistent decline in land condition.

For graziers this means reduced forage availability, poorer pasture resilience and diminishing capacity for beef enterprises to respond to seasonal variability – all adding up to long-term threats to productivity and profitability.

However, research and financial analysis have identified opportunities to increase herd profitability while reversing land condition decline.

By optimising both animal performance and stocking rates producers can improve gross margins and maintain landscape productivity.

What’s going wrong?

The temptation for many producers is to increase herd numbers to maintain output as land condition and animal performance deteriorates, but this only deepens the problem.

Overstocking depletes perennial, productive and palatable pasture species (known as 3P grasses), undermines nutrition and reduces fuel loads which limits the effectiveness of fire management, thereby accelerating timber thickening.

“The continuous pressure of overstocking is a false economy. Producers might think they’re maintaining output by adding more animals, but they are undermining the fundamental resource their business relies on, the land,” DPI principal extension officer (beef) Niilo Gobius said.

Recent on-ground land condition assessments across 260 sites show that since 2004, carrying capacity at those sites has dropped by 15 per cent (from 75pc of original carrying capacity to 60pc).

By 2023, 92pc of monitoring sites were discounted for timber thickening and pasture composition, the factors most responsible for lost carrying capacity.

A smarter path to profitability

The Australian Beef Report and case studies from successful producers make the business case clear: key performance indicators like kilograms of beef per adult equivalent (kg beef/AE), reproductive efficiency, turnoff weights and low mortality rates drive profitability, but all hinge on good nutrition. And good nutrition throughout and across years comes from land in good condition.

“We need to stop thinking about carrying the highest number of head and start focusing on achieving the best performance per animal,” Mr Gobius said.

“Good nutrition drives higher weaning rates and better turnoff weights, and that only happens when the land is in good shape.”

So, what does good management look like? Leading producers are:

• matching stocking rates to carrying capacity
• using wet season spelling and giving pasture rest
• managing woody vegetation with fire
• implementing targeted supplementation and crossbreeding programs
• keeping detailed records and culling non-performers.

These strategies lead to healthier herds and healthier land and that means better liveweight gains, higher weaning rates and improved business resilience.

Looking ahead

It’s up to industry to lead change, supported by extension networks. If grazing practices don’t adapt, land condition will continue to degrade.

“Recovery can take decades, so we need to start now. By embracing the principle of ‘less is more’ and focusing on per-animal performance in an optimised herd, northern beef producers can build more profitable, resilient and sustainable businesses,” Mr Gobius said.

Source: Qld DPI