Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:
Agmates has nothing but praise for the lobbying that State Farming Body AgForce has done to bring about a national pasture fed certification for beef.
Central QLD Cattleman Ian McCamley, MCC Pastoral “Ganadero” Comet (Location) is the AgForce Cattle Board vice president. In that role he has been lobbying the Cattle Council of Australia (CCA) for some years for an AUS-MEAT accredited beef pasture certification.
“Finally the CCA has agreed to investigate and work towards the development of a new beef identification standard that is AUS-MEAT certified” Ian said.
Picture # 1: Ian McCamley in a yard of his pasture-fed & naturally raised prime cattle set to go off into the food chain on Thursday the 1st of May.
“Grain-fed beef has had its own certification for years. In fact in Australia it’s the only certification, all other beef we produce goes into a basket classified as ‘other’. The 3 main markets for our beef are grain-fed, grass-fed and live export.
AgForce believes it is time for grass-fed beef, which is exclusively naturally raised in the paddock, to be distinctively identified for the benefit of consumers who are increasingly interested in how their food is produced,” Ian said.
Photo # 2: Ian and his family took these photos for Agmates on the 1st of May. Below they are mustering these bullocks ‘the boys’ off natural Buffel grass pasture on Ganadero at Comet Central Queensland.
AgForces proposal is that Pasture-fed naturally raised beef will be developed as the new national standard to underpin the quality and integrity of beef that has been exclusively finished on grass.
That beef will be exported with an AUS-MEAT natural pasture fed beef stamp on it. AgForce is also are calling for MSA (Meat Standards Australia) certification and stamping to guarantee the eating quality to beef consumers.
Photo# 3: ‘The boys’ calmly strolling into the Cattle yards for drafting and trucking.
Ian Said, “Consumers are focusing more attention on how farm animals are raised, therefore we believe there is an opportunity to differentiate more of our great product.”
“We also believe a new natural beef standard has the potential to extract market advantages and price advantages for our natural and healthy pasture raised and fatten beef.”
Photo # 4: ‘The boys’ yarded at Ganadero. Now to draft out the fat’s. Shouldn’t be to hard to get a load out of these.
AgForce recently met with AUS-MEAT and Cattle Council staff to discuss the best way to develop a standard to certify pasture-fed natural beef.
“We (AgForce) are taking an oversight role on a project to investigate the market performance of a new natural-beef line and identify exactly what is likely to spark consumer interest,” Ian said.
Photo # 5: McCamley bullocks “the boys” during the draft. Raised and finished on natural pastures. They are calm and quiet to handle.
“We want to capture an opportunity to grow the overall beef market by meeting new consumer requirements for environmental or other attributes, whilst ensuring meat-eating quality through use of MSA.”
AgForce said the push for a pasture-fed beef standard in Australia follows new American USDA Agricultural Marketing Service regulations on “grass-fed” and forthcoming regulations on “natural” beef.
“We believe we can easily meet any US “grass-fed” regulations that are in place. Our competitor countries such as Uruguay already have USDA approval for their systems to be recognised.
This coupled with the drop off in volume of grain-fed beef available to markets due higher grain prices leads us at AgForce to believe Australia needs to progress this new standard quickly for producers of our natural grass finished beef to able to be truly competitive in world markets.”
Photo # 6: There thats done. Ian’s and his family are finished drafting the “the boys” and everyones happy.
Agmates wonders why it has fallen to graziers like Ian & AgForce to have to lobby CCA to implement a “pasture-fed” standard that will no doubt have many advantages in differentiating and marketing or great natural grass fed beef. Surely this should work should be done by the producer levies funded Meat & Livestock Australia?
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Have Your say!
Say G’day to Ian, leave a comment or question, I’m sure he’ll be happy to answer any on this topic.
Congratulations, job well done. Could you send me a copy of the standard - our bureaucrats are too focussed on keeping the grain fatteners and feedlotters happy to bother with we mere grass finishers.
Thanks Craig. Currently CCA is exploring the detail of what might be included in an Australian pasture fed naturally raised beef standard. I believe it will need to at least match the USDA voluntary standard and the Uruguayan certified natural meat process varified programme (which is grass fed only). I think both can be found on the net. I also believe eating quality must be addressed by at least knocking out the dark cutters plus some MSA grading of at least the grilling cuts to ensure they eat well.
Those of us representing state and national beef interests who believe that producers, processors and most importantly consumers are currently missing out by not having a standard to differentiate our grass fed beef will need continued support from the ‘mere grass finishers’ to ensure that this new standard gets up.
Remember we have no specialist organisation to promote the best interests of grass finishers in Australia. CCA (who signs off on grass fed levy expenditure) tries to represent all beef production because some of the grass fed levies are paid on cattle entering feedlots. So effectively while CCA is doing it’s best working on the incredible variety of overall beef industry issues, the lotfeeders through ALFA (who signs off on grain fed levies) have the luxury of simply driving us all towards a beef industry that is grain fed only. I (and thankfully some others) believe that we need a balance of grass finished, grain finished and live export sectors with all beef being sold on it’s true merit. I realise that the road will remain rough whilst our representation continues to be so out of balance however at this point we will continue to try and work within the system. If we fail then undoubtedly an organisation representing grass finishers will be born!
G’day Ian,
Well said - thats great information. Do you have the web addresses for the USDA Voluntary standard and the Uruguayan Certified Natural beef process? If so could you post them in a comment so readers can click through and have a look at them?
Cheers
Steve
It will be interesting to see what Cattle Council actually achieve here.
There are a lot of grass finishing producers who have for years been asking MLA to differentiate grass finished beef from the point of view of cholesterol levels, omega three’s etc etc. MLA have always avoided the issue and made excuses as to why they shouldn’t pursue this issue.
Will MLA provide marketing dollars specifically for grass finished beef as an alternative to grain finished beef? Well MLA?
Will the Red Meat industry Structure allow this differentiation?
Ian,
I am very interested to read your comments, and of your good work to have Natural grass fattened beef, obtain it’s true recognition,mostly without HGP’s.
I am certainly happy to lend any support to your efforts.
Bruce Gibson, ABA member.
Last year I dissected the promotions budget that MLA published in their website. I was dissapointed to see that MLA used Grass Fed levies to promote grain fed product into emerging markets in northern Europe and Russia. What can certification do to stop this rot. For years MLA have been actively using Grass Fed levies to target the grass fed traditional market segments to swap consumers over to grain fed beef. What possible justification can the MLA have to use one segments levies to promote the demise of that segments market.
Thanks Stuart,
The demise of certain segments of the market, being impacted by the way MLA uses Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue for marketing, is the result of the poor Structure of the Red Meat Industry set up by John Anderson. The result is the livestock producers have little say in financial matters and cannot expect to as MLA is vitually a government department. We always hear that MLA is a producer organisation , nothing can be further from the truth. We can only hope that our new government sorts out the mess they have inherited. Members of MLA cannot expect to have any say in the expenditure of Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue. The sooner producers become aware that they have no say in financial matters the better, maybe then we can look to an organisation that truly represents livestock producers.
The “structure” results in the marketing dollar being contolled by the majority interests within the Red Meat Industry. These majority interests are feedlotters, processors and retailers. Most of these have little interest in seeing grass fed product competing with grain fed product
Stuart,
Can I suggest you write to the Hon. Tony Burke with the information on marketing you have found. The Federal Government is the only avenue to correct the diversion of Commonwealth Consolidated Revenue Funds away from where is should have been spent.