Dr Duncan's Digest

New EBLEX blog

2011-07-19T08:25:00.000-07:00

Following the departure of Dr Duncan, you can find the new EBLEX blog at http://beefandlambmatters.blogspot.com.

Heading off to pastures new

2011-05-18T07:41:00.000-07:00

Apologies for the lack of blogging over the last few months. You may know that at the beginning of the year I began a secondment as director of DairyCo, a position which was recently made permanent.

Being on an extended period of secondment and then moving is a strange situation when it comes to finding the right time to say goodbye (sort of), so I have decided that now will have to do!

In my 13 years with EBLEX (and prior to that the MLC) we experienced evolution, devolution and revolution. Throughout all of that I was lucky enough to work with excellent people who are good at what they do, and who care deeply about their industry.

So I am now bidding farewell to the beef and sheep industry and heading for pastures new, of the dairy variety. I’ll be leaving the blog in the capable hands of my EBLEX colleagues, although I’ll still be keeping an eye on the latest developments in the beef and sheep sector and how we in the dairy sector can work closely with you on common issues.

Obviously I’ve not gone far and no doubt will see some of you around.

Testing the water

2010-12-23T10:25:00.000-08:00

Livestock farmers have been a popular scapegoat in the press when it comes to climate change, but the second EBLEX roadmap shows that farmers should now be on the front foot when it comes to discussing a sustainable future for the industry.

We can now demonstrate that the most carbon efficient sheep and beef producers are also the most profitable. For every kg of CO2 eq reduction beef production margins improved by 50p per kg liveweight, and sheep farmers benefitted by 28p. The business case for low carbon livestock is better than ever.

In the industry we’ve always felt that the relationship between commercial performance and environmental performance was a good one, but for the first time we are able to back up our logic with numbers. After all it’s tricky to manage what you can’t measure! This quantification is one of the key areas of study in Testing the Water – The English Beef and Sheep Production Environmental Roadmap Phase 2, published by EBLEX.

It’s not just about emissions either. The report includes the first reliable water usage footprint for the beef and lamb production industry, estimates the industry’s contribution to the landscape and biodiversity in England, and takes a snapshot of the energy and waste performance of the processing sector. Key findings include the fact that it only takes 67 litres of blue water* to produce 1kg of beef, and that beef and sheep farming contributes an estimated £1.494 billion in value to our rural landscapes and £1.288 billion to biodiversity value.

The report makes it clear that there is real potential for a greener, more sustainable livestock industry in the UK and that ultimately this is going to be good for the bank balance too. The old ‘win-win’ or even ‘win-win-win’ line that seems to get readily rolled out these days springs to mind! However, this is by no means a closed book. The data on which these results are based is still limited and while we now have a better handle on what’s good, we need to get to a point where these results are good enough to start affecting future pathways in the development, rather than curtailment of the sector (in the UK). In particular much more needs to be done on establishing the baseline for our carbon footprint and the steps that can be taken to reduce it. Government is investing in research to improve the inventory assessment, but this will take a few years to come through.

With pressure mounting on the environmental performance of farming, at a time when the profitability of farming is stymieing re-investment in the efficiency of businesses and a new generation of farmers, this research should encourage farmers. Most importantly however it provides a unique climate change reference guide for those looking to question the future of livestock farming in the UK. We plan to complete the ‘trilogy’ through developing some future scenarios for livestock production in the UK, later next year.

* blue water is water that could reasonably be used for other purposes, e.g. taken from the piped supply

Countryside commentary

2010-11-16T03:05:00.000-08:00

What is it about writers and commentators that make them suspend normal concepts of business and technical progress when they look at agriculture from the outside? A recent example came up when Alex James, the Blur bassist who now writes a column in a national broadsheet, was bemoaning the increased field sizes that are required for modern machinery, all “for a few quid extra” (Alex James:The rape of England - The Independent, 9th June 2010).

I could cast an equally uninformed eye over the music business and consider that it might all be better if we still had gramophone records rather than MP3s. I am pretty certain he would consider this a Luddite view, so perhaps he should invest a bit more effort in understanding how the farming industry works.

I guess the same sort of principle applies when food critics bemoan the effects of factory farming and mass production, completely ignoring the fact that eating quality and consistency of product has improved BECAUSE OF – not in spite of – improved methods and increased volumes. That is not to say that small-scale producers are not capable of producing a good product – many are. And many successful, small-scale producers are using the same methods and understanding that were originally researched for use in larger scale production.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion, and I expect Mr James is a perfectly nice chap, but he must remember that English farming and food production is a business and for the countryside to thrive it must be economically sustainable. When we get that bit right, the beauty of the countryside will naturally follow.

However, what the countryside “should look like” is a matter for debate. Over the last 20-plus years, the countryside in lowland areas has continually changed as crops and farming methods alter. In upland areas, the rate of change is slower. But how do you define the perfect countryside? One expert – who was only half joking – once defined it as, “the views I saw that Sunday afternoon in 1976 when I went for a drive in the country with my grandparents”.

Putting knowledge into practice

2010-10-27T07:20:00.000-07:00

I had the pleasure of visiting a vey well run beef unit the other day and seeing a fantastic example of someone who has translated existing knowledge into a very effective system. Simon Frost, who farms near Youlgreave in the Peak District, has put together a package that generates fast-growing store calves that are sold to single finishers.

The cows are Limousin crosses from one dairy herd and they are mated to carefully selected Charolais bulls with very high EBVs for growth and muscling. Simon’s knowledge of the pedigrees and EBVs of the Charolais breed is encyclopaedic. This means he has picked up some excellent stock bulls over the years and has a good idea of where the next good ones will be coming from.

We spent a few hours walking through the cattle on a gloriously sunny day a week or so before the calves were due to be weaned and sent to the finishing farm near Derby. Simon’s relationship with the finishing unit means he gets high-quality feedback about growth rates and carcase classification, which he can use to tweak his system further. He frequently goes to the abattoir to see them on the hook and discuss with the classifiers how he can make improvements.

Simon has the happy knack of seeing the key issues to be addressed and then finding a solution. He has also stuck to his mantra of “growth is king”, so all his management decisions are designed to drive growth.

Following on from my previous thoughts on progressive farming, I was struck by the appetite for progress and how a successful business had been made through the bringing together and exploitation of sound technical information. It is businesses like his which help define what is possible.

Plans are afoot to hold an EBLEX event on the farm in 2011. I think it should be an excellent day. Until then I leave you with a couple of pictures to whet your appetite.

Progressive farming is vital

2010-10-13T02:29:00.000-07:00

Let’s be clear – big livestock units are not bound to be bad. It depends, as with small units, how well designed they are and how well run they are. The vast majority of the UK public enjoys eating livestock products and values them as an important part of their life. They also expect, in the main, these products to be produced sustainably. As global demand increases, farming practice will have to develop and progress further. If getting bigger enables progress, then let’s not stop it.

The Sustainable Livestock Bill, backed by Friends of the Earth and a cross-party group of MPs, will ask the Government to implement a strategy that will improve the sustainability of livestock farming and consumption of livestock produce. Having such a strategy is not a bad thing, but over-simplifying complicated issues like equating soya imports with an immediate solution to deforestation in South America simply won’t work and has little relevance to domestic beef and sheep farmers.

The pessimists in the industry make the assumption that the answers the Bill could come up with on production will diminish the UK livestock farmers’ ability to produce products that are in demand. I don’t think that will necessarily be the outcome. Not if the separation between production policy and consumption management is clearly made. We trade with other countries and that means production and consumption at home have a looser relationship than many “campaigners” think. We are net importers of food and livestock products are no different.

We are 74% self-sufficient for beef and 88% for lamb, yet we trade about a third of our lamb to EU countries, principally France. And there is growing demand for English beef in the EU and further afield. Latest export figures show that beef exports are up 31% compared to the same period last year. This export trade makes good sense for English producers because it makes for a more competitive home market and so improves economic sustainability. Economic sustainability encourages the environmental sustainability that we all know is an essential component of managing climate change and supplying enough food to meet world demands.

This call for Government intervention in the food system may well stimulate great technical input into farming because further efficiency gains are imperative. They should be adopted to make the most of available resources and if that means bigger units, then why not? The welfare and health considerations of the livestock must be met and the Farm Animal Welfare Council already recognises that a large dairy, pig or beef unit may offer some advantages for animals because the size will allow the employment of full-time veterinary services, expert nutritionists and stockmen.

This gain in enterprise size does not do away with the concept of the benefits of mixed farming. On the contrary, one of the reasons for placing a large dairy unit in Lincolnshire is to integrate with the huge areas of arable production that will produce feed and benefit from the manure produced. The mixed nature will continue, it’s just it may be that the different bits of the mix are run and owned by different people. The nature of food production means that a well-integrated network of interdependent businesses will continue to develop and support one another.

So can we just think about the bigger picture and look at the benefits of big as well as the cons of small?

Beef breeding – past, present and future

2010-09-22T15:04:00.000-07:00

Two or three times a year I give a lecture to university students as a guest speaker. One of these invitations is to talk about beef breeding and genetic developments. To give some depth to the presentation, I go back 200 years and talk about how breeds were established in the UK from local “mongrels”. This work was often done by one or two passionate individuals who set about “fixing” the characteristics of the breed. Some of these programmes were impressively ambitious in their scale. Some of the well-known and well-documented examples include Hugh Watson and William McCombie working to establish the Aberdeen Angus from 1808, and Charles and Robert Colling who established the Shorthorn as a breed.

The point of this was really to try and make an association between breed and expected performance, an early form of branding if you like. Modern brands of all sorts are trying to get buyers to make an association between the brand and some special qualities. You don’t have to think long before you can come up with a few, VW cars for reliability, Volvo for safety etc.

Like other brands, beef cattle breeds have not stood still. When you plot a path from the breed fixing stage to today, you can quickly see how breeds have changed and developed. South Devons have gone from being dual-purpose milkers to a beef breed. Hereford and Angus have shrunk and then grown again in mature body weight as the market demands have changed.

The changing demands of the market and, if we are honest, fashions shaped in the show ring, have had their influence on cattle breeding and genetic development. In the early days, by which I mean the 1850s through to say early 1900s, showing of livestock had a very positive development on breeds and breeding. County and national shows encouraged the pursuit of commercial traits and gave a profile to the successful breeders which increased the value and demand for the best stock.

However, that was then and today it’s a different story. I think the value of livestock shows for breed development has passed. As a fun competition between like-minded friends and neighbours, there is no harm in showing cattle, in a similar way to dogs or canaries. The livestock show is also a great way of engaging with the non-farming public — there is nothing like a good show of cattle to get discussion and interest going in food production and matters agricultural.

But times change and the availability and accuracy of Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) means that showing has no place as a means of identifying the best genetics for commercial production. For many years now, commercial pig and poultry breeders have been driven by well-planned and controlled genetic selection programmes. Dairy breeding is not far behind. So why has beef and sheep breeding not moved in the same direction at the same speed?

I think there are a number of factors at play. Firstly, the structure of the beef industry is one where many small pedigree herds service lots of smallish beef breeding herds (averaging 29 breeding cows). This means that bulls have a limited number of animals to serve, which in turn restricts the price paid for them. Secondly, the low number of offspring from cattle means that selection pressure is limited. You can increase production from the best cows by embryo transfer (ET), but that has associated risk and costs. Thirdly, the extensive nature of beef breeding means that artificial insemination (AI) use has been limited, leading to restricted access to the best bulls and again limiting stock bull value.

Around the world, and here in the UK, there are signs of a change in breeding practice. Producing EBVs through quantitative assessment is now simple and good value through Signet or ABRI systems. The increasing impact of molecular markers means that genetic progress can be accelerated and applied to some previously difficult-to-measure traits (provided the in-depth background work has been — and continues to be — done). EBLEX is working to integrate the existing EBVs with molecular EBVs so that breeders can interpret the result in one common “language”.

Having spent a couple of centuries stabilising breeds (although they have since altered quite a bit), the most adventurous breeders are now creating composites by picking the best genetics from several breeds. The idea is that you create a commercial animal that can be adapted to changing market requirements by changing the breed mix – a more responsive approach. Current genetic understanding and computing make these more complex systems workable. Other breeders look around the world for breeding stock that has been developed for a market and can be “parachuted in” to the UK market, as market demands and production conditions change.

All in all, beef breeding and beef breeders are on the cusp of a revolution, and the speed of development will be similar to the change that occurred when Charolais and Limousin arrived in the early 1960s. And the same things are happening in sheep breeding too.

1927

2004

The highs and lows of the agricultural show

2010-09-09T08:57:00.000-07:00

EBLEX had a major stand at the Dairy Event and Livestock Show held at the NEC this week. Visitors were plentiful, and judging by the footfall to the stand and discussions I had, most of the visitors seemed to be finding what they wanted. It was very encouraging to speak to so many well-informed farmers in such a short space of time.

My particular mission was to talk about the value of Estimated Breeding Values (EBVs) as a tool for selecting breeding stock. This was a job I had ‘inherited’ from my colleague Sam Boon because he was engaged elsewhere. It’s the kind of talk I have given quite often so I had no worries about the content, although I would acknowledge Sam has a deeper knowledge of genetics and breeding than me.

The gist of the presentation is that beef cattle and sheep are the product of the genes they carry and the management applied to them. When you are selecting a bull or ram to produce your slaughter generation, the niceties of exactly how he looks are less important than the genes he carries and passes on to his progeny. This is particularly true for traits that are not expressed when you are looking at the sire. It is impossible to look at a bull or ram and decide what potential his daughters are going to have as mothers.

This is where EBVs come in, telling you about the likely performance of offspring by measuring performance in the sire, his parents and grandparents, his siblings and half-siblings, as well as any other progeny already produced. You can also gather up all the economically weighted EBVs into an index to identify the most financially rewarding sires overall. There’s loads of good quality info on this sort of thing on the EBLEX Better Returns Programme web pages (as well as individual breed society websites), and there will be even more on the new Signet website, which is coming soon.

As you can tell, I was quite enthused about the prospect of giving my talk in the showing rings once on each of the two days. I decided to go to the ring nice and early, as it was some way from the EBLEX stand, and found the ring was occupied by a fine array of rare breed pigs and then sheep. There was a good crowd of 150-plus watching the judging. That finished and like a spilt drink on the beach, the crowd drained away in a trice. When the time came for my presentation I had an audience of …five.

This was a little disheartening, but I decided to plough on in the hope that there would be some passing trade that would stop and listen. My lively, entertaining and informative talk drove two of the five away. I like to think they already had a good understanding of EBVs so did not need to stay. So I finished and then had a chat with the remaining three audience members before retiring to the safety of the EBLEX stand.

I don’t know if Sam would have done any better, but it is quite clear that a middle white sow with big ears, dish face and a snub nose held considerably more charms for that audience than me and my EBVs.

Leading the witness

2010-08-26T14:10:00.000-07:00

The concerns around good (human) nutrition, climate change and sustainability are starting to come together, creating what Prof John Beddington – the Government’s chief scientific adviser – calls the ‘perfect storm’, where the need to produce more food for the increasing global population coincides with the time when readily available fossil fuel is running out and climate change is an even bigger challenge for agriculture. The UK government has published a paper on food strategy which highlights the same basic concerns but from a UK perspective.

This concern and analysis is very sensible and needs to be done. The danger, however, is that overly simplistic conclusions can be drawn. The assertion that not eating meat will solve all of these problems is an example of this. This is patently not true when you consider the land resource used for ruminant meat production is, in the main, not really fit for much else in the food producing stakes!

Unfortunately, the CBBC programme Gastronuts has fallen into this trap, and is an example of how easy it is to draw half a conclusion from half a story, leading them to present a skewed view to a suggestible audience. Part of a (recently repeated) episode of this programme set about demonising beef by pointing out how much methane cows make and how much water is used to produce a burger, without taking anything else into consideration, such as the land resource needed for instance. (On the water use question there was no differentiation between rain water and piped water which is quite crucial to the argument. EBLEX is running a project on that which will report in November 2010).

After being urged to taste vegetarian versions of dishes like spaghetti Bolognese alongside their more traditional meat counterparts, with the clear aim of demonstrating how good meat substitutes can be, a group of children was then taken to a top London vegetarian restaurant to show them how tasty dishes with no meat content are. At this point it was difficult not to feel that a slant was being put on proceedings.

Later on, a nutritionist did explain that humans are designed to eat meat and the children examined a pig digestive system to help their understanding – as well as considering the diet of an omnivorous monkey. There was, however, little about what a fantastic nutritional package meat offers, and the fact that the Government advocates it as part of the balanced plate approach to a healthy diet was completely missed out. It was therefore somewhat inevitable that the children, when questioned at the end of the programme, had become pretty negative towards meat.

The overall feel of the episode was rather off-kilter and EBLEX has contacted the BBC about the programme balance, seeking information on sources for the figures and statements made. We have also offered expert advice for any future programmes on the topic in a bid to ensure a factually correct picture is presented of the beef and lamb industry.

We most definitely need young people to be thinking about how food is produced and how that affects greenhouse gas production and hence the climate. They should also free to make their own choices about what they eat. But we need a balanced presentation of the issues so that people, young and old, can make an informed choice. Too many media sources are simply not delivering this.

Shedding sheep

2010-08-24T03:15:00.000-07:00

Interest in making sheep easier to shepherd is definitely gaining momentum. I think that collectively, we, the British livestock industry, have been too accepting of animals that need looking after. In the pursuit of wool production, higher growth rates and improved carcase conformation, we have sacrificed the traits that help sheep look after themselves. To compensate, we then use more manpower to look after dopey lambs and daggy sheep, and remove wool with little value.

The development of wool-shedding sheep is a fine example of a counter revolution in breeding and husbandry. Admittedly, it has taken quite a long time for the industry to realise that the market for sheep products has changed. The value of wool as a product has been very low for decades, and for many sheep producers wool is now an expensive nuisance which costs much more to manage than it can ever return. So, it’s not bad logic to opt for sheep that shed their wool themselves, or even better don’t have any in the first place!

In the British Isles we spent about 600 years breeding sheep for improved wool yield and avoiding shedding to make sure we could harvest as much as possible. The 14th century economy was largely driven by wool. Now we would probably be better off without it in many situations. Luckily our improved understanding of genetics means that we have much better methods for introgression of shedding genes and their subsequent management in a population.

The Exlana and EasyCare breeds are, I believe, the start of a small revolution in how we view our sheep and will reduce the costs of production. Speaking to the Exlana breeders they were staggered, but delighted, by the level of national news coverage they got when they announced themselves to the world. I hope their development thrives. It will be interesting to see how ready the wider sheep industry is for their concept.

As with many things in life, it’s a good idea to have some insurance against a change in future market opportunities, so I do think we should retain the best wool producing genetics in case we need them again. Semen and embryo storage will allow us to do that, as well as small populations of rare breeds. With a future oil shortage (nylon) and pressure on arable land (cotton), we may find that in a hundred years’ time wool becomes a valuable commodity once again.

Buildings, what buildings?

2010-08-16T04:14:00.000-07:00

As I have driven around New Zealand looking over fences and meeting with farmers, I have been struck by the complete lack of farm buildings, even far into South Island. On sheep farms there is usually one building - the shearing shed. On beef and deer farms there are no buildings at all (except the farmhouse), and on dairy units there is generally only an open-sided milking parlour.

The only other significant construction on beef and sheep units is a handling system with a raised single file loading ramp, similar to others I have seen in the US and Canada. Having watched these systems in action it’s clear that the flow of animals is very much more controlled than when using full width loading ramps. Baulking is reduced and turning eliminated. It makes me wonder why we in the UK are wedded to our full width ramps, which give animals the opportunity to turn and make loading difficult.

There have been moves in the New Zealand dairy industry to introduce winter housing, but this is regarded by many as a dangerous precedent. The argument goes along the lines that housing farm animals is not natural and could ruin the green image of New Zealand livestock products. Farmers over there point out that they have spent many years breeding cattle and sheep that are genetically ‘designed’ to cope with such a life, and buildings represent an unnecessary cost. I met with one pedigree cattle and sheep breeder who intentionally uses his harder hill paddocks to help weed out the weaker animals.

This method, which could be termed genetic selection by environmental challenge, is quite different from the approach we take in the UK. It does, however, align with certain messages that EBLEX has been highlighting in literature and at meetings. Breeding sheep and cattle that can look after themselves in a given system is a valuable way of reducing costs and improving welfare. Animals that need less husbandry make commercial sense. Vigour and survivability are valued traits in New Zealand. Several breeders I have spoken to expect shearlings to mate 100 ewes as a minimum - anything less is unacceptable.

My other observation on New Zealand buildings is that houses and motels are not really designed with winter in mind. We stayed in one motel when the outside temperature was -2 degrees (inside +2 degrees). As usual we turned up the heating, expecting to get to a comfortable temperature after 30 minutes or so. Motel heating usually consists of just a small fan heater - upmarket motels have two fan heaters. On this occasion, the heaters were not up to the task, so with bedtime approaching the only option was to go to bed pretty much fully clothed with the exception of my shoes. Perhaps the motel owners were on a carbon efficiency drive.

Greenhouse gases New Zealand style

2010-08-12T04:36:00.001-07:00

I am currently on a study tour in New Zealand looking at how they are dealing with the issues of greenhouse gas (GHG) production from beef and sheep systems.

Like many visitors, my first impression of New Zealand is just how green it is, even in their late winter/early spring. There is grass everywhere. There are odd small pockets of forestry, native scrub, orchard and kale, but the majority is grass.

Despite the vast areas of grass there is an evident thoroughness, even ruthlessness, in the way it is harvested. There is a forest of electric fencing ensuring the cattle get the chance to graze the right amount of feed. Front fences and back fences come into play to manage re-growth effectively even at this early stage of their grass season. Perhaps the most startling sight for me was the stocking rate of dry dairy cows, with 20 on an area the size of a tennis court!

Sheep are run exclusively on grazed grass. Speaking to one sheep farmer on the North Island about his sheep system, I mentioned that we would expect to use supplementary feeds in the winter and he was aghast at the thought.

All this grass feeding does mean that the methane output from the national beef and dairy herds and the sheep flock is a major cause for concern. Recent inventory estimates put GHG production from ruminants (methane and nitrous oxide) at 48% of the national production footprint for CO2 equivalents (eq) - the equivalent figure in the UK is 5%. As signatories to the Kyoto protocol, New Zealand has CO2 eq reduction targets to meet. Hence there is a huge programme of government-funded research afoot to try and address issues of rumen management and animal efficiency.

Alongside the research there will be an emissions trading scheme introduced for farmers in 2015. This is effectively a tax on production. There is, however, a parallel ‘carrot’ for land owners, as well as the taxation ‘stick’. The carrot comes in the form of a credit for tree planting and growing. Carbon credits are earned for new forestry and these can be traded. The average forestry life is calculated to be 30 years, and at that point of harvest 80% of the credits have to be repaid, with 20% remaining for the landowner based on the assumption that 20% of the carbon in a tree is below ground in the roots.

My colleague Liz Genever previously visited New Zealand, and the excellent grass management she witnessed there provided inspiration for the work she is now doing championing improved grass utilisation by English beef and sheep producers. More profitable production is only part of the benefit - there is a significant contribution to GHG reduction too.

Liz has run a good number of successful grassland management events so far this summer and more are planned. If you haven’t yet been to one then please visit our website to find out more about events near you.

The perils of travel

2010-08-09T07:48:00.000-07:00

In this modern age of high-speed internet connections and instant access to virtually anyone in the world, it would seem reasonable to expect the arrangements for my study tour to New Zealand to be pretty straightforward. Or so I thought.

As I made my way to Heathrow Airport, everything was in place. My air travel tickets were booked, and I had a meticulously-planned programme of visits with researchers and civil servants arranged, with the odd day of sightseeing thrown in.

I arrived at the check-in desk and gave the genial chap with the rather flashy gold, protruding tooth my e-ticket number. I then handed over my passport. On receiving it, he sucked his teeth a bit, giving us a flash of his expensive dental ware. Some desperate attempts to scan the passport failed and he then tapped in a rather long number on the keyboard.

“I just need to check with my supervisor if we can accept your passport Dr Pullar,” he said.

“Oh,” I replied. “Is there a problem?”

“Well, er… yes, there is the problem. Your passport is rather dog-eared. In New Zealand they don’t accept dog-eared passports. You could get all the way there and then they could refuse you entry!”

“Shall I carry on without you?” said Mrs Pullar, waving her rather tidy passport and looking unconcerned. I replied with a fixed grin.

10 minutes later we had established that my degree of dog-eared-ness was not a barrier to travel and I was allowed to continue on my journey.

22 hours later in Auckland, a genial, ginger-haired New Zealand passport official surveyed my dog-eared passport.

“If you were a New Zealander I would throw this in the bin!” he said. “Please get it replaced when you return to the UK.”

I assured him that I would. And I meant it. Being faced with the prospect of several months of planning going down the pan because of a frayed passport is not an experience I want to repeat.

Meaty matters

2010-07-26T06:00:00.000-07:00

It never ceases to amaze and impress me just how much knowledge EBLEX has produced and collected over the years. My colleagues Kim and Dennis, who look after meaty matters, are a case in point. Between them they have more than 50 years of research and development experience in matters of meat eating quality.

In recent months we have seen the benefits of their experience, as they have noticed a problem in abattoirs which could affect meat eating quality if not addressed. The issue is one of technology creep through evolution.

Let me explain.

A number of devices have been introduced to modern slaughter lines that involve passing electricity through the carcase. One of these is High Voltage Electrical Stimulation (HVES) and there are very good reasons for using it. The electric current causes the muscles to use up the sugars stored in them. The sugars are turned in to acids, which in turn cause the pH in the muscles to drop, and allows faster chilling. This helps avoid drip loss and evaporation loss, and speeds up maturation. The secret of success is to pass the right amount of electricity through the carcase and make sure the pH fall and chilling regime operate in synchrony.

Quite a few of these machines are in operation and ‘deliver the goods’. However, if you over-stimulate the muscles you can get a phenomenon known as ‘hot shortening’, which leads to tougher meat. Some plants use electrical stunning, followed by electrical immobilisation at the hide pulling stage. Both of these actions apply electrical stimulation to the carcase, which if not taken into account means the HVES machine will deliver too much stimulation, leading to hot shortening. Unfortunately because slaughter lines develop through evolution some examples of uncoordinated electrical activities have been discovered, which could ultimately affect meat eating quality.

Now for the good news: The problem can be resolved through the application of some considerable knowledge and experience, derived from good research in the areas of muscle chemistry and engineering.

So hooray for science and the tender beef and lamb we continue to eat.

If you are aware of a situation regarding meat eating quality, or any other subject our meat scientists may be able to help with, please drop me a line at duncan.pullar@eblex.org.uk.

My beef with soya

2010-07-20T06:14:00.000-07:00

When I read the newspaper, about all sorts of things of which I have only a general grasp, I tend to accept that the story presented is basically true. But when I see a piece about a subject of which I consider myself to have some knowledge, there only seem to be two possible responses:

1. Complete agreement and much nodding of the head or
2. Complete exasperation and much shaking of the head (and occasionally the fist).

The latter is usually brought on by either gross oversimplification or ‘churnalism’, in which unsupported ‘facts’ are repeatedly trotted out, and by dint of their repetition they somehow become accepted. This seems to happen very frequently where climate change is concerned and so here is a pre-emptive strike!

Soya meal has become a very important animal feed in the UK, and the UK supply is derived largely from South and North America. The land used to produce it in South America has, in some circumstances, been until recently rainforest. Further destruction of the rainforest is no good for anyone on the planet, so we should stop doing it.

UK beef and lamb production is not driving the demand for soya. The level of soya meal use in beef and sheep diets is very small. The best estimate I could find, from a colleague with a good knowledge of animal feeds, was that the use for sheep and beef respectively is two and four per cent of soya meal imports.

Why so low?

The mainstay of lamb and beef production is grass, either fresh or conserved, which is fairly high in protein. While the market for animal feed is large (equating to about 9.6 million tonnes sold annually across all species, with prices averaging around £190 per tonne), beef cattle and sheep are relatively low users. According to Defra stats the biggest users of compounded feed are:
• dairy (33%)
• poultry (31%)
• pigs (14%)
• beef (8%)
• sheep (8%)

When a supplementary source of protein is required, rapeseed meal and maize gluten meal are the most common options for beef and sheep producers. Soya is used less frequently, as it’s relatively expensive compared to other sources of protein.

So, to complete the circle – low usage levels and a low inclusion rate means that UK beef cattle and sheep are very low users of soya meal and could easily function without it at little or no cost. It will be interesting to see if this data becomes accepted wisdom for future climate change articles or whether commentators will continue to suggest that reducing the level of beef and lamb production in the UK will have a significant effect on the rate of deforestation elsewhere in the world.

Lack of grass

2010-07-14T14:57:00.000-07:00

Welcome to my first blog! Here I will share my musings on a variety of subjects related to beef and sheep production. I hope you enjoy reading it. Feel free to comment below and share the blog with anyone who might be interested.

In spite of some brief rainy interludes this week, the drought conditions being experienced all over the country remain a serious issue for livestock farmers. Even on heavy soils the grass growth has just about stopped. Around where I live in north Bucks the silage cuts taken in early July have failed to show any re-growth at all.

The immediate problems of feeding cattle and sheep tend to be less serious than expected, with the old adage ‘better fried than boiled’ coming in to play. It is surprising how well ewes and cows can do on an apparently near dead pasture. That said, there are some measures that are worth considering to better cope with the situation.

For sucklers consider early weaning. Calves that are three to four months or older can take feed themselves, and with a well constructed concentrate they will not suffer much of a check in growth. Removing them from the cow will mean that the cows are under less pressure to provide milk. They can then put the limited feed energy into preserving or gaining body condition, and getting pregnant.

My experience of doing this did require the cows to be housed for a week to get over the loss of the calf (unless you have very sturdy fences – which I did not!). However once the calves were weaned, the cow condition improved, and the calves grew on well and had lifetime finishing performance comparable with suckled calves weaned at seven to nine months.

I have not had the same direct experience with lambs, but the best advice would be to get the creep feeders going asap to make sure lambs don’t suffer any checks.

Longer term, the issue of sufficient winter forage could be a problem with straw in short supply and silage stocks low. The only answer is to do a cool appraisal of what stock you have and what you can sensibly purchase, and work out from there what your winter rations need to be. Some in-roads can be made into winter feed costs for breeding stock by extending grazing into autumn and turning out animals early if ground conditions allow, but it is much better to plan for a standard winter and have the insurance of knowing you have enough forage available.