Beef Industry of Australia

Running head: BEEF INDUSTRY OF AUSTRALIA
Beef Industry of Australia
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1BEEF INDUSTRY OF AUSTRALIA
Table of Contents
1. Introduction............................................................................................................................2
2. Discussion..............................................................................................................................2
2.1. Current economic prospects (growth or decline over past five years)............................2
2.2. Opportunities for future innovation................................................................................3
2.3. SSI...................................................................................................................................4
2.3.1. Firms........................................................................................................................4
2.3.2. Knowledge Base.......................................................................................................6
2.3.3. Institutions................................................................................................................7
2.4. Top three system weaknesses or failure..........................................................................9
2.5. Addressing the system failure of factory style livestock production..............................9
3. Conclusion............................................................................................................................10
4. References:...........................................................................................................................11

2BEEF INDUSTRY OF AUSTRALIA
1. Introduction
Australia is basically a small beef producer on a global scale. However, the low
population in Australia means that the level of consumption in the country is also low and
this allows the country to export good volume of beef every year. It exports to several
different markets world-wide and the largest of all are America, Korea and Japan (Henderson
et al. 2018). It can be broadly divided into southern and northern production systems. It is
also to note that the cattle producers in Australia make use of different breeds on the basis of
their potential of meeting the market specifications and handling the Australian climatic
conditions. There are several different parties who are involved in the Australian beef supply
chain. This paper will elaborate on presenting a brief analysis of the Australian beef industry
in the current competitive market.
2. Discussion
2.1. Current economic prospects (growth or decline over past five years)
Like the other agricultural commodities, Australia produces about 3.9% of the total
beef production of the world and more than 60% of the beef production is exported world-
wide (Higgins et al. 2015). This means that Australian Beef Industry is one of the three
largest beef exporters in the world, along with Brazil and America. The production of beef in
Australia extends more than half of the Australia along with about 47,000 cattle producers
that aid about 20% of the whole value of the farm production in the country. At the time of
drought, the rates of slaughter gets increased. The farmers then try to sell their cattle in order
to preserve their pastures. Because of the very limited supply of the feed grains that are
associated with the onset of feedlots and droughts are overactive at the time of drought. The
use of feedlots in Australia has developed significantly since the year 1980 (Greenwood,
Gardner and Ferguson 2018). The country has now the capacity of feeding more than 1

3BEEF INDUSTRY OF AUSTRALIA
million of cattle in the feedlots at a time. Presence of feedlots in this country is set for
continuously increasing the demands in the near future as the grain fed beef increases. This
increase is already significant in the other parts of the world like in America. It is also to note
that domestically, the Australian beef industry produced about 823 million kilograms of meat
and imports about 7 million and export 4.4 million kilograms. The per capital consumption of
beef is about 15.70 kilograms and the total number of customers that its holds are about 48.6
million world-wide.
2.2. Opportunities for future innovation
The Australian beef producers are trying to make use of innovation for addressing the
rising pressures from the animal and the environmental activists regarding the way this
industry presently operates. There is an ever increasing demands for ethically,
environmentally and socially sustainable food and transparency within the industry. The Meat
and livestock, one of the producer owned red meat industry research, development and
marketing companies of Australia has already started making use of the virtual reality for
educating the customers regarding the supply chain (Sun, Hyland and Bosch 2015). This
virtual reality experience follows an animal on the cattle station being moved into a feedlot
and on to the processing at abattoir prior to landing on the plat in any restaurant. This
innovative practice has been proven to be an effective way of addressing the misconceptions
regarding the industry. As per the recent study by Ash et al. (2015), it has been claimed that
in the near future, this innovative technology can also be used for allowing the customers to
visit the farms from where their food came from in virtual manner. This will bring in more
transparency within the beef industry. It is to note that the beef industry of Australia is
becoming more and more advanced technologically in terms of their tools of communication
as well and it is certain that it will be the future of the beef. It has been also reported that the
MLA (Meat & Livestock) in Australia is soon to take the delivery of the prototype automated