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With uncertainty around the long-term future for direct payments, production efficiency on beef farms will be crucial if profit is to be made, Dr Francis Lively from AFBI told attendees at a webinar last Thursday.
During the event, which was looking at the future of beef production to 2030, Lively acknowledged that some improvements have been seen in recent years, with the average age at slaughter for steers and heifers dropping to 24.1 months.
But he maintained that there was still a lot to do around grassland management, and opportunities to reduce reliance on expensive concentrate feed.
“The full potential of grass is not yet being exploited by the beef industry,” he said.
Lively quoted results from CAFRE benchmarking for suckler to beef herds which showed that the top 25% fed 1.1t of concentrate per cow, which was slightly less than average performers. But these top 25% of herds produced significantly more liveweight per hectare (594kg v 548kg), mainly because they were able to make better use of grass and forage on their farms.
A recent survey quoted by Lively suggested that only 16% of beef farmers do any form of grassland measurement, and around 50% still operate set-stocked systems, despite the gains to be had from rotational grazing.
Lively also highlighted that there are gains to grazing at the margins of the season. He quoted work showing that young cattle turned out 17 days earlier than counterparts were an average of 23kg heavier at housing in the autumn. In a separate study, young cattle kept out on autumn grass had similar performance to those inside, but cost 62p/head per day less to feed.
Looking ahead, he said that multi-species swards could have a role on farms, with the long root systems of some of these plants helping soil structure, and allowing them to be more drought-tolerant.
He also highlighted the potential role for virtual fencing, where neck collars are used to direct the animals within a field. With research showing that moving from three- and four-day paddocks to daily allocations of grass can significantly improve both utilisation (up 19%) and animal performance (up 42%), virtual fencing could help add precision to the grazing system, said Lively.
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