The Level of Pasture Utilisation in Southern Australia

Summary

Meat and Livestock Australia, as part of its Southern Beef Program, identified that the level of utilisation of pasture grown in the southern zone is at best in the range of 30 to 40%, and that producers themselves saw this as wasted opportunity that they need help in correcting. To this end, MLA commissioned a Producer Advisory Group to consult with its peers to establish the limitations to producers achieving higher levels of utilisation and make recommendations that address identified limitations.

Impact of Low Utilisation Productivity of a beef business is largely determined by how well grazing managers manage a number of biological cycles, and in particular, the energy cycle where solar radiation (sunlight) is captured by the plant, converted to green energy through photosynthesis, and converted to saleable beef through utilisation (grazing) of grown pasture. The efficiency of management of this cycle has a major impact on business profitability and the level of utilisation of pasture grown is a key determinant of this efficiency. A worked example in the report indicates that increasing utilisation from 33% to a modest 50% doubled enterprise profit. Findings Our core finding is that producers do not understand this grazing energy cycle. This is not surprising. There is no common language of productivity and what there is does not support understanding in sufficient detail. Information and knowledge are rarely presented in whole of system packages.

The current approach presents information at a level that is accessible by a large producer target market. As such it is next to useless for most producers who are able to move forward. Many are not aware of the size of the opportunities presented by knowledge and management of this energy cycle. Self-motivated, information-seeking leading producers push through this barrier. They are adept and persistent in their seeking of information, advice and support. Where information is presented in discrete packages they have the ability to integrate the principles into their own systems. They invest in personal growth, business and technological training. Increasingly they are specialists by enterprise or by attention to detail. They are generally producing double or better than industry averages, with similar degrees of effect on relative profitability. At the same time they report lower risk and equal or improved resource and system sustainability.

Our recommendations are based on setting a realistic goal, correcting the limitations seen in presentation of information and increasing access to the support and training structures and processes that leading producers are using. We recommend that MLA involve producers at all levels of planning, preparation and implementation. One of their first steps will be to work with MLA to make productivity and pasture utilisation an issue across the southern states. Until this happens major amounts of pasture energy will continue to be wasted and opportunities to convert even more sunlight to beef will be missed.