IS IT time for the beef industry to fully-embrace breed description as part of the National Livestock Reporting Service’s physical saleyards reporting activity?

Ever since the independent National Livestock Reporting Service was launched back in the 1990s – replacing the state-based Queensland Livestock & Meat Authority, and NSW Meat Authority market reporting services – breed-type has not been included routinely in the industry’s official NLRS prime saleyards reports.

There are some exceptions, like weaner sales and most store sales (the massive Roma store sale being the exception) that appear to buck the trend. But reports from the big-hitting prime cattle selling centres that seriously influence market sentiment like Dalby, Gracemere, Wagga, Dubbo, Gunnedah, Wodonga, Tamworth and Roma appear to rarely, if ever reference breed in commentary.

But times have changed, and some very large distinctions are now evident in the value of both store and slaughter cattle based on breed type, driven by demand for meat quality and marbling in brand programs. Angus feeders, for example, are currently worth 80-100c/kg more than ‘flatback’ feeders (link) of the same weight, depending on region.

Yet NLRS saleyards reporters at bigger centres for whatever reason do not make breed distinctions in their commentary, let alone the statistical tables. Essentially, readers have to ‘guess’ that the entries at the high end of the price scale reported for a weight/gender category may be Angus, and those at the bottom something else.

Take Tuesday’s 10,000 head Roma store sale as an example – easily the largest cattle sale in Australia this week. The only breed reference in the report talks about “a single Euro bull” topping the bull market at 324c. Hardly comprehensive breed-related coverage.  Today’s 4800 head Dubbo yarding included no breed reference whatsoever.

In contrast, all NLRS sheep sales routinely report breed type.

Descending into farce

This situation has descended into farce in the past couple of weeks, as big breed price differences have only grown further.

An official NLRS-appointed independent saleyards market reporter earlier this month described cows “of a certain breed” in a prime sale as commanding a price premium – without actually identifying the breed itself. In a second example, Monday’s Wagga sale report said the market “showed strength for a particular breed across all weight categories.”

In Beef Central’s opinion, by definition, any credible, effective and legitimate market reporting service should be discussing all factors that have a material impact on livestock price – age sex, body condition, weight, and breed – among them.

Concerns over breed bias/advocacy

So why is breed description taboo in many NLRS market reports and commentary?

Long-held concerns within Meat & Livestock Australia/NLRS ranks about industry perceptions of breed bias or advocacy for one breed over another appears to be at the heart of the issue. In essence, MLA/NLRS did not want to get caught in the crossfire between rival breeds, based on market signals.

There are few, if any people around that were active during the formation of NLRS 30 years ago who can give a definitive answer, but discussions this week with a former NLRS program manager who worked in the service a decade or more ago confirmed the above as the primary reason. In fact he was unable to provide any other reason for the policy.

He said during his time working in the service, he would occasionally ask for a breed reference policy change to be considered, but got nowhere.

He said surveys of stakeholders at the time routinely suggested that the industry wanted breed type included in reports. “There were a few extra data points that people were looking for, but the big one was breeds, breeds, breeds,” he told Beef Central.

“There was even opposition to simply collecting the breed data, because it was felt at the time that that would then open the door for industry to say, give the data to us,” he said.

“But to be honest, for anyone reading a saleyards market report, it (breed) gives them so much more value, for what represents just one extra data point.”

Worth noting in this discussion is that other cattle market reporting channels – AuctionsPlus’s weekly summaries for example – are not bound by the NLRS regulation, and routinely reference breed as part of their self-reporting commentary activity. Indeed  A+ produces a separate table of Angus results each week. Similarly, self-reporting by agents and others involved in local cattle sales always references breed type.

Muscle scoring a form of ‘breed codes’

Of course, NLRS sale reporting statistics have used proxies to hint at breed type for decades.

All prime reports include a column for muscle score (as distinct from fat score) as a perverted code for breed type. Euro-influenced animals would get a muscle score A, British a score B, indicus a score C and dairy score D. Whether this was done for breed politics reasons or otherwise is open to question.

In fact Beef Central can recall entire yardings of store cattle at northern selling centres in the distant past where the entire catalogue – often several thousand store cattle – were universally allocated muscle score Cs. Statistically highly unlikely.

Feedback from an industry survey in 2023 on NLRS market reporting methodology clearly indicated that stakeholders are not using either the fat or muscle score recordings, and see little value in them.

One of the reasons muscle scoring may have remained in place is that it is used as one of the criteria for inclusion in the industry indicators, like the EYCI. Removing muscle scoring would change the range of cattle included in the daily EYCI calculation, and leave the indicator out-of-context with the 40 years of historical EYCI data that has been captured.

But fact the discipline of muscle scoring has long been challenged in certain areas – some suggesting it is a poor representation of actual meat yield – let alone meat quality. Others say the ability to assess muscle score is much harder to master than fat score assessment, and the two can be easy to confuse.

Similar concerns could be raised around the issuance of estimated dressed weight prices alongside liveweight prices in saleyards reports, based on a crude dressing percentage formula applied from Charters Towers to Powranna.

For example slaughter cows in Queensland will yield anywhere from 45pc to 56pc, and even within purchases made at a single sale, can vary by 6-7pc, Beef Central was told by processor cattle buyers. It makes any dressed weight equivalent ‘price estimate’ very risky indeed. But these are topics for another day.

“If NLRS is to continue to evolve, it needs to start thinking about how it services producers, and the broader industry’s needs around reporting breed differentiation,” a source with close connections to the platform for the past ten years said.

“It’s actually low-hanging fruit. The way the market reporting App functions, it is very easy to add another field, like breed type – especially since moving away from the old PDF format into active online charts.”

Legacy decisions

Meat & Livestock Australia’s market information and NLRS manager Stephen Bignell was asked to comment for this article.

He made several valid points, stressing that many of the decisions around content in saleyard market reporting were ‘legacy decisions’ from the distant past.

While individual sale reports have not changed, he said MLA had taken on board the feedback about breed identity reporting, and that was now reflected in the publication of the online sheep, online lamb and online young cattle indicators (all based on AuctionsPlus results, where breed is identified by each vendor).

“But it is harder for the market reporter in the saleyard system, because unlike AuctionsPlus listings, the breed data is not being input by the vendor,” he said.

“There are physical and logistical limitations. It might be a black-hided animal in the pen, but the market reporter does not necessarily know what its genetic composition is.”

Mr Bignell said for finished cattle, there might be different prices paid for different breeds, but the distinctions were seen as less significant than in store cattle trading.

“Where NLRS can, I’d say we are incorporating breed,” he said.

“In the weaner sales held in southern saleyards, we’ve started reporting breed. Where we can, and if possible, MLA does see the value in reporting on breed.”

That also applied for store sales, with one key exception being the Tuesday Roma store sale.

Asked why breed is clearly absent in reporting in the industry’s key, nationally-significant weekly prime sales like Dalby, Dubbo, Gunnedah, Roma store and Wagga, Mr Bignell suggested the reason was that historically, cattle in prime sales were mostly bought by processors and butchers, where (at the time of implementation, at least) breed was considered less of an issue.

However he conceded that a lot more cattle in designated ‘prime’ sales were now purchased by lotfeeders, backgrounders and restockers, in addition to processors.

Adding to confusion, key sales like Tuesday Roma (designated as a store sale), and Wednesday Dalby (designated a prime sale), offer similar descriptions of cattle, and sell to both processors and lotfeeders/restockers.

“There has clearly been a change in the function of the prime sales channel over time,” Mr Bignell said. “Prime sales that once attracted only meatworks buyers now attract lotfeeders, backgrounders and restockers.”

Beef Central asked whether MLA had received any feedback from stakeholders on breed references in NLRS reported sales in its recent markets reporting survey.

“Not overwhelmingly,” Mr Bignell said. “The biggest issues raised were more regional content, and the presentation of the sale reports when viewed on smartphones. The only place that breed came up in the survey was in the section called ‘other comments’,” he said.

• What do readers think? Use our comments facility below.