CEO Update October

I am writing this month’s CEO report having just returned home from the World Hereford Conference hosted by the American Hereford Association in Kansas City, Missouri. It was an honour to be able to represent Herefords Australia at this forum and meet Hereford breeders and the staff from other Hereford associations from around the world. Around 800 delegates from more than 20 countries attended the conference. Our friends from AHA were excellent hosts and put on a great event that was well worth attending.

The conference highlighted that Hereford breeders around the world are dealing with very similar issues. Market share, further growth of the breed and industry demands were common themes. However, the advantages that Herefords bring to farming business and the rest of the supply chain were consistent. Temperament, fertility, longevity and quality of product were universally agreed. The enthusiasm around Hereford cattle in the United States with demand for cattle for use in cross breeding programs and acceptance in feedlots gives us confidence in our own strategic direction. The conference has opened up opportunities for collaboration with others around the world as well as highlighting some market opportunities that we will aim to develop over coming months.

I was also privileged to attend the Young Breeders Competition in the few days leading into the conference. I would like to congratulate Emily Taylor, Tabby Cross, Will Van Gend and Lochie McLauchlan for representing Herefords Australia so well. Each of them brought their own skill set but worked together as a team for a range of challenges. It was awesome to see their hard work pay off with Emily Taylor receiving the award for Reserve Individual for the Meat Animal Evaluation competition and the team claiming the Champion award in the Team Fitting competition. This made the Australian team the most successful team outside of the United States. I would like to thank Tim Reid for having taken time out from the conference to mentor the team. Tim’s skills and support were greatly appreciated.

One significant development for the month has been the inclusion of the Hereford data from the Southern Multibreed Project into our Hereford BREEDPLAN analysis. The Southern Multibreed project has given us access to important reference population data for the full spectrum of traits including hard to measure traits such as fertility, carcase, eating quality and feed intake. Herefords Australia are the first breed to include this important industry dataset in a genetic evaluation and we will benefit from improved accuracy for Genomic EBVs for these traits.

Also of note were the cooperator herd steers processed by Teys Wagga Wagga early in October. The 18-month-old steers were finished on grass and processed at an average carcase weight of 292kg. The average MSA Index for the group was over 62.1 which placed them in between the 10^th and 25^th percentiles for grass fed cattle nationally. At the top end there were several animals in the mob with Ausmeat marble scores of 4. Overall, the cohort was a perfect example of how well Hereford cattle can not just meet but exceed specifications for the major domestic retailers. I would like to congratulate Tim Hayes on how the cattle were presented and would like to thank Teys Australia for the ongoing support of the project.

Looking forward to the remainder of the year we have a number of exciting items still on the agenda. Next week we will be hosting the Future Leaders and Breeders 2025 event with tours of Windy Station, Killara Feedlot and Teys Tamworth. We truly appreciate the support of each of these businesses as well as our major sponsor Bendigo Bank and event sponsors Shine at Agribusiness and Auctions Plus. Tickets to the event are sold out, so for anyone who is interested I would recommend keeping an eye out for next year’s event.

We are aiming to have GenSELECT available to producers by the end of the year. GenSELECT is a suite of genomic tests developed in Australia by ABRI with Herefords Australia’s support that will be initially offered for use in Hereford cattle. It will allow commercial cattle producers to access genomic products to improve selection decisions for heifers and steers as well as accessing a profile product that allows them to benchmark their herd against the rest of the Hereford population. GenSELECT will be available through Neogen.

Finally, we are making good progress with recruiting new staff for the member services team. We thank members for their patience over this transition period and would like to assure you that staff are doing everything possible to continue providing the usual high level of service to members. As always if there is anything that you would like to discuss please do not hesitate to get in contact.

Warm regards,

Hamish Chandler

CEO Herefords Australia