There was a variety of questions and comments from beef farmers who attended the Teagasc winter beef-finishing information event at Kilkenny Mart last week.
Some farmers made comments on the need for contract pricing from factories for winter finishing cattle, while others made comments on the older age profile of the attendees at the event.
One interesting question that was put to the speakers on the night came from a young farmer in the crowd who asked: “Could beef farmers see a shift in the payment system away from conformation, towards intramuscular fat, marbling and meat yield?”
The speakers at the event included Teagasc’s beef enterprise leader Paul Crosson; Teagasc livestock systems research officer, Mark McGee as well as Kepak’s procurement manager Jonathan Forbes and the Irish Farmers’ Association’s (IFA’s) livestock chair Brendan Golden.
Responding to the question, Paul Crosson said: “There is some Teagasc work around meat yield and seeing how can farmers be paid on meat yield rather than conformation and shape and we also want to link that meat yield to the quality of meat on the animal.”
Crosson said that meat quality is linked to factors such as intramuscular fat and marbling, but added: “There’s other parameters around tenderness and so on that we have to factor into this also.”
He said that a model to pay farmers for these parameters “hasn’t been devised yet” and admitted “it’s something that is going to take time”.
“The US has marbling as part of its payment system but within Europe, we’re locked into the ‘E,U,R,O,P’ grading system – but there’s no reason why we can’t modify that,” he said.
“In our trials we always look at the effects of management practices on the quality of the meat product because it’s not being adequately recognised at the moment but some day it will be.”
Also responding, Kepak’s Johnathan Forbes praised the question and outlined that he personally believes it would be something worth examining, saying: “The best farmers produce the best beef”.
Forbes explained that meat quality is better in younger-type cattle (prime cattle) that are finished “as young as possible” rather than older cattle that have been subject to a more prolonged finish.
“When you put that dip in performance in a beef animal, they put down gristle in the steak and that’s a less desirable trait,” he said.
ICBF work
The Irish Cattle Breeding Federation’s (ICBF’s) progeny testing programme, Gene Ireland, is currently undergoing trials to assess the meat yield of beef cattle and collate that back to the sire.
Eating quality is also examined and a number of trials are done to determine the ‘eating quality’ of beef.
The loin of the animal is scanned to see the amount of marbling and sub-cutaneous fat in these trials also.
Currently, there is an index for meat-eating quality which is available in artificial insemination sires.