L.SFP.1017 - Environmental Credentials for Grassfed Beef – pilot project phase

Summary

The national online platform, Environmental credentials for Australian grassfed beef (ECGB) has been built to enable grassfed beef producers to measure and report on their environmental credentials. The project is being led by MLA, in partnership with the University of Queensland and WWF-Australia, funded through the National Landcare Program’s Smart Farming Partnership grant.

The purpose of this sub-project was to facilitate the piloting of the platform and gather feedback to inform its finalisation before the release in February 2024.

A series of facilitated webinars were held to engage beef producers with the ECGB platform that demonstrated how to navigate through the various parts and addressed the key frequently asked questions. Producers were then able to trial the platform for their own properties in their own time and provide feedback through an online survey. Survey data was analysed and has been used to form recommendations for refining the platform.

Recommendations should inform the changes which can be made to the platform prior to its release in 2024 and future iterations of the platform.

Objectives

The overall objective of this project was to deliver pilot workshop webinars to a minimum of 500 red meat producers and analyse feedback provided by participating producers in a report to inform refinement of the platform. This overall objective was made up of three key sub-objectives: demonstrate the use of the platform, collect feedback from producers, and report feedback from producers.

Key findings

Feedback from the pilot process identified key themes to base the focus of recommendations on. These themes include:
• improving platform access
• improvements to ease of use / navigation
• refinement of the learning library
• modifications to the carbon calculator
• improvements to the biodiversity self-assessment quiz
• changes to the MyCredential section.
Many of the simple issues and value-adds suggested could be actioned in the short term, and other issues and suggestions may need to be held over for the next iteration of the platform.

Benefits to industry

The pilot testing phase enabled user testing of the platform which will in turn allow for valuable feedback to inform improvement and finalisation of the platform prior to public release. This work should lead to the development of a better product and increased satisfaction with the platform and greater value to be gained by industry using the tool.

MLA action

MLA are seeking funding to further develop the Environmental Credentials Platform and will continue to maintain and improve the platform to build the user base.

Future research

The feedback from this pilot testing should inform the refinement and finalisation of the platform. Valid and valuable suggestions which are not able to be incorporated into the platform refinement at the current time should be recorded and used to inform the development of future iterations of the platform.