Abstract
Context Businesses within the Australian cattle industries and associated research and advisory agencies require accurate data on production and performance of the national herd. Currently, these are derived from survey and statistical data; the latter is expected to be accurate, but the former needs to be tested in view of information suggesting significant under-reporting. Aims The research aimed to define the structure, performance and liveweight production of the Australian cattle herd and describe changes in reproduction, growth and survival over the past 40–50 years. Methods Interactive static herd modelling of beef and dairy herds was reconciled each year from 1976 to 2018, using slaughter and live export statistics and surveyed dairy cow numbers. A principle applied was that model performance should dictate input variables, moderating information derived from publications and professional opinion. Key results The Australian cattle herd fluctuated in size till the mid-1980s from when it settled into a range of 30–40 million beef cattle (12–16 Mt), exceeding survey data by 56–75%. The dairy herd remained at ~10% of the beef herd. Despite consistent herd size, productivity of the cattle herd increased from ~2.5 to 4.5 Mt of liveweight annually over 35 years. Half of this change was due to reductions in mortality, though ~1 million post-weaning-age cattle still die annually, in addition to >0.5 million calves from birth to weaning. Approximately a quarter each of the change was due to increased reproductive output and to steer growth. Liveweight production per beef animal increased from 70–75 kg/year to 130–135 kg/year, while liveweight production ratio increased by 0.08 and 0.12 kg/kg of cattle in male and female beef cattle respectively, to reach 0.31 kg/kg of cattle. Conclusions The main conclusion is the size, performance, production and productivity of the Australian cattle herd are quite different from that determined from surveys. Also, there is an on-going opportunity to derive benefit from improving cattle survival, reproduction and growth and from improving the feed base. Implications This research may have large impact on priorities for Australian beef business and associated environmental management. It is recommended that surveys be used to derive relative values to use in combination with absolute statistical data to derive accurate herd measures.
Highlights
Government and industry priorities for research and advisory activities are typically based on analysis of a system to identify opportunities and problems
The main conclusion is the size, performance, production and productivity of the Australian cattle herd are quite different from that determined from surveys
It is recommended that surveys be used to derive relative values to use in combination with absolute statistical data to derive accurate herd measures
Summary
Government and industry priorities for research and advisory activities are typically based on analysis of a system to identify opportunities and problems. For the Australian beef industry over the past 50 years, this has been based on analyses using limited statistics (primarily slaughter and live export data), survey data (primarily herd structure and performance data) and issues identified by businesses and research. An example of the latter is the very large ‘Cash Cow’ project, which defined prevailing performance and Journal compilation Ó CSIRO 2021 Open Access CC BY production of breeding cattle in northern Australia, highlights of which included very large variation in all measures, and high overall wastage of calves between confirmed pregnancy and weaning (McGowan et al 2014).
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