The catchment area for cattle eligible for slaughter for the Meat Standards Australia program will be greatly expanded, following endorsement of a proposal to extend the current window from day-after-despatch for stock transport from property of origin to slaughter to 48-hours.
The opportunity now exists for producers from a much larger footprint covering Australia’s extensive cattle production regions to supply stock for MSA, under the new 48-hour time window, from despatch to slaughter.
The program is expected to be put in place in the second half of this year.
“We expect this will be a significant benefit, Australia wide, but especially to the northern pastoral industry,” MSA steering committee chairman Scott Hansen said after Wednesday’s MSA taskforce meeting, which approved the change.
Mr Hansen said it was hard to forecast what the potential increase in ‘draw’ for MSA slaughter cattle would be, but he suggested it would be ‘very, very significant.’
“We will be monitoring figures once the program is implemented later this year to see what the result is in terms of increased MSA cattle availability and supply,” he said.
Benefit to producers is expected to come in two main ways:
- Remote producers will have considerably more time in which to move cattle from property of despatch to processing, in order to qualify for MSA, and
- The benefit of opening-up potential marketing competition for northern producers who are already within transport ‘range’ of perhaps one MSA processor, but who might in future be able to supply to other processors seeking MSA stock, due to the longer time-window.
One of the major impediments that has existed up to now for MSA supply – especially in northern pastoral regions where transport distances to processors is greater – was the MSA pathway requirement that cattle be processed the day after despatch from property.
That timeframe created a natural catchment limit that excluded large numbers of cattle from inland areas. In North Queensland, for example, the practical ‘cut-off’ was around Richmond – only half way along the Flinders highway linking Townsville with Mt Isa.
“It certainly addresses what was a major limitation of the MSA program, which was the ability of producers in the northern pastoral regions to participate,” Mr Hansen said.
He stressed that the extension to the current transport time limitation in no way compromised the eating quality outcomes delivered by MSA to consumers.
Long distance transport research conducted over the past 18 months – now completed, presented and endorsed by the MSA scientific pathways committee – ensured the integrity of the MSA program or product performance would not be compromised by the move.
“That’s now scientifically proven, using large scale MSA taste panel testing and pathways trials, and it’s part of the reason why this process has taken two years,” Mr Hansen said.
Cuts from cattle exposed to different combinations of transport time length and other variables were all fed through for consumer taste panel testing, underpinning the change to the current time to slaughter standard.
“In no way will this project, designed to increase cattle supply, weaken the MSA standards,” he said. “Instead, it is simply a further refinement of the MSA science, with more data available to us now, allowing MSA to present this option.”
Another important point was that there continued to be a risk of increased negative impact on grading scores over longer distances of transport – primarily reflected in risk of unacceptably high pH (5.4-5.7 allowed under MSA) and dark meat colour (1b-3 allowed) in carcases at grading.
Important points that came out of the trial work indicated that the good handling practises that most producers already implement as part of their normal pre-transport and transport routine – including low stress stock handling, keeping cattle in familiar mobs before and during transport and related actions – are all steps which deliver the best chance for MSA compliance in longer-distance transport applications.
Essentially much of the inherent risk associated with longer distance transport can be overcome with good husbandry, liairage and management practises, in grading performance, research has shown.
Given that MSA now grades more than 2.2 million head of Australian cattle each year, and continues to grow, the extension to the transport window announced on Beef Central this morning will be a critically important part in matching MSA supply to demand in coming years.
The longer-distance transport issue was raised with Mr Hansen when he first returned from the US to take up the MLA managing directorship, when he was challenged by northern pastoral identity Peter Hughes to seek solutions to the problem during an address at Brisbane Show in August 2011.
“At its core, MSA has always held two key long-term goals,” Mr Hansen said.
“One is to ensure that all Australian beef is able to be graded to provide a consistent eating quality outcome to consumers, and secondly, to be able to differentiate levels of eating quality to enable brands to use MSA as one of their many tools for differentiation of their product to extract maximum value from customers.”
“This transport window adjustment is a major step forward in ensuring that we have as many cattle as possible eligible to be graded under the MSA program.”
Mr Hansen said MLA would be putting effort and resources behind explaining the MSA system and the science behind it to more remote producers who previously did not qualify for the program, due to transport distance.
The transport window decision was the second development of major importance finalised at Wednesday’s MSA steering committee meeting (see this morning’s other report, “Optimisation model a major step forward in MSA program history.”)
With the two major outcomes from Wednesday’s taskforce meeting, driven by R&D investment funded by producer levies, the model and the program now had the capacity to continue to grow in terms of what it offers for producers and processors in order to meet that rapidly expanding demand, Mr Hansen said.
"Great initiative": AACo
AACo chief operating officer Troy Setter welcomed the changes as a “great initiative” that would give producers more choice and greater opportunities to be rewarded for producing quality cattle, while it would also benefit processors by giving them access to more supply chains.
AACo already supplies some long-distance MSA cattle from its channel country properties in western Queensland to Brisbane, but Mr Setter said there had always some risk associated with meeting the existing transport limit to achieve MSA compliance and related premiums.
That had meant changing drivers and using special truck configurations.
“We will now be able to go further, and it will give us more of a buffer in case we do have slowdowns or road works, so it will allow us to handle those better,” Mr Setter said.
“It will open options for us to go from Central Queensland and northern Queensland down into other markets.
“Our properties that produce high quality grassfed MSA type cattle for slaughter will actually be able to get those cattle to processing plants, and grade them as MSA.
“You will get a good reward for quality breeding and careful animal welfare management.
“Any initiative to expand the MSA supply whilst maintaining quality, we support.”
NWQ agent welcomes changes
North west Queensland livestock agent Luke Westaway greeted the MSA transport rule changes as a very positive move for the region’s producers.
Mr Westaway, from TopX in Richmond, said the existing 24 hour MSA transport window from property of origin to point of slaughter had made it largely impractical for producers west of Hughenden to achieve compliance.
While he was aware of one producer from Julia Creek who had successfully supplied MSA cattle, that had been “a touch and go” proposition.
“It is going to open a whole lot of new MSA doors for people in the west which have never been opened before,” Mr Westaway said.
However he added that the additional costs of using road transport instead of rail transport to comply with MSA would cancel out some of the gains.
For example the cost of transporting cattle by road from Richmond to Rockhampton was about 5c/kg more expensive than the cost of transporting by rail.
In cases where the MSA premium was only 5c/kg above the price of non-eligible cattle, the premium would be countered by the additional costs of road transport.
However, the expansion of the MSA footprint would give western producers greater confidence to move towards producing MSA eligible cattle, Mr Westaway predicted.
“As there become some more advantages to go with the flatback market, it will give some incentive for that to grow.”
The MSA premium in South East Queensland plants is currently in the vicinity of 30-40c/kg, which is considerably higher than historic averages.
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