Cattle Council Report

by Ross Peatling

The Cattle Council had another pretty busy year in 2008 with the first big event being the Five Nations Beef Conference which was hosted by the United States. Australia was represented by Bill Bray, Peter Hall of Agforce, David Inall & Jed Matz of Cattle Council. The next conference will be in New Zealand in February 2010.

Beef markets across the globe suffered a major blow in the latter part of 2008. Emerging markets such as Russia could not afford to pay for imported beef and our main markets of Japan & Korea slowed with Korea suffering a major downturn. The US remained fairly positive with cow beef holding up pretty well.

At the 2008 AGM in Orange Greg Brown of Agforce was elected as president of CCA and Tim D’Arcy, PGA, was elected Vice President & Paul Saward of TFGA remained as the Treasurer.

Membership issues remained a problem for most of 2008 and South Australia is still not a member & this is unlikely to change in the near future. The CCA constitution was amended at the orange AGM so the Executive is now empowered to discipline members who decide what affiliation fee they feel they may like to pay.

CCA, like NNF, is looking at alternative forms of funding apart from members subscriptions.

Cattle Council remained active in the areas listed below:

• Animal Welfare
• Live Export
• Welfare Standards for Land transport of cattle
• Climate Change
• Quarantine review
• Constitution /Membership issues

Another very important debate this year will be about whether the cattle transaction levy should remain at $5.00. The levy as increased from $3.50 in 2005 for marketing purposes but had a sunset clause of 2010 for the $1.50 increase. CCA has a mood that the $1.50 be retained.

Peter Hughes is chairing the committee on the review of the levy and the $1.50 component will be voted on at the MLA AGM in Darwin in November this year. This independent review committee will release its report in May this year at Beef 2009 at Rockhampton. As an industry we must continue to promote our beef and cattle to our International customers and this will be a tough task given the global financial crisis we are experiencing at present.

I am sure the debate will be rigorous given the “blinkered” stance of minority groups.

Animal Welfare

This continues to be an area where Cattle Council is totally involved. o try and reduce some of the workload of the staff and to improve efficiencies across several areas CCA has formed six taskforces. This was done at the AGM in Orange in November 2008. The taskforces are:

• Animal Health, Welfare & Biosecurity
• Marketing
• Enviromental
• RD&E
• Industry systems
• Food safety

The chairman of each taskforce reports to the full council. I chair the animal health, welfare & biosecurity taskforce & in our first meeting we worked through a questionnaire developed by MLA ranking various husbandry techniques.

At this stage we are recommending that flank speying be banned and we support the Willis method of speying. Electro immobilization be banned, unless under veterinary supervision. We are waiting on advice from the Beef CRC before a decision is made on callicrate banding.

Transport standards & Guidelines are finalized and Cattle Council supports the standards & guidelines providing harmonization of legislation between states & territories occurs.

Live Export

This market has been very strong and underpinned the beef market in 2008. Record shipments occurred from Darwin last year and it is an essential market for the NT and Australia as a whole. There is presently a downturn in this market again caused by the financial crisis. Livecorp advised that live cattle exports increased by 20% last year.

Bill Bray travelled to Indonesia last year with Minister Burke and it has been a major step forward in the signing of a FTA between Australia, New Zealand and ASEAN countries. As David Inall, the Executive Director of CCA, said “this agreement demonstrates a commitment by the Federal government to providing a platform to support growth in Australia’s international beef trade”. In 2008 our beef & livestock trade with member countries was worth $722 million. This market represents 69% of total livestock exports.

Work is underway to get free trade agreements signed with both Japan & Korea.

Quarantine & Biosecurity

The Beale report was released on 18 th December 2008; a report of some 240 pages.

One recommendation that the CCA & industry reacted too very strongly, and rightly so, was the recommendation to import live FMD virus into this country to the Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL) in Geelong. Apparently there was no submission to the Beale inquiry suggesting that the virus be imported. Even though we are told that AAHL is one of the most secure laboratories in the world Cattle Council policy is very definite that the live virus is not to be imported into Australia. Scientists can travel overseas to destinations like Thailand if they wish to research FMD. Industry & government are funding a $5 million project for this purpose. At a Senate Estimates hearing in Canberra in late February the government reiterated that there wasn’t any current application to bring FMD strains to Australia for research purposes.

We, as an industry, must remain absolutely vigilant and make sure FMD in any form does not enter Australia.

Climate Change

This is the “political warm & fuzzy” that is keeping half the politicians excited. No one in government at present understands how a Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS) will work. I know that a tax will not reduce emissions so we have to be very careful with this one.

The National Farmers Federation is working tirelessly on this issue but the CCA must also have a policy. CCA forums identified key areas for further research. These areas are accurate research for measuring emissions and a carbon trading environment that sustains international competitiveness.

Figures quoted for methane emissions from livestock are out date. For the first time Australia will invest in a major research effort to reduce emissions from livestock which will update the old research of the nineteen sixties.

Projects will include exploring dietary supplement requirements & alternative feeds to reduce methane and also the use of chemical or biological controls of bacteria in the rumen to reduce emissions. Agriculture is exempt from any CPRS until 2015.

In conclusion our long serving animal health consultant, John Stewart, retired in December 2008. John was a tireless worker for the industry and was farewelled at a dinner at Orange in November last year. John has been replaced by Justin Toohey, a former Executive Director of CCA.

The CCA staff of David Inall, Jed Matz and Debbie Frater has once again dug deep & have done a marvelous job for the industry. Heidi Dennis joined this hard working group in October 2008. Heidi is the media person and her time is split between the Cattle Council & the Sheepmeats Council.

Please make time to meet Greg Brown, the CCA President tomorrow, as he and Heidi Dennis are attending our conference.

Thank you.

Ross Peatling
Cattle Council Delegate
20 March 2008