Beef enterprise leader at Teagasc, Grange, Dr. Paul Crosson, has recently highlighted that much of the progress made in reducing the average age of finish for beef cattle has stalled in 2023.
Addressing a recent Teagasc conference, Dr. Crosson highlighted that reducing the average age of finish for beef cattle is an essential element for Irish agriculture to meet its greenhouse gas emission reduction targets and said this is supported by strong evidence.
In an overview of the finishing ages of Irish beef cattle for the period 2012 to 2021, Dr. Crosson noted that the average age of finish decreased by an average of close to one week per year over the course of this 10-year period.
He said: “There was very strong progress being made up to 2021 in terms of live weight performance on farm. The trait or definition is age of finishing, but the manifestation of that at farm level is better live weight performance.”
“If we look at 2012 to 2021, age of finish reduced by nine days per year in the first half of the decade, before falling to four days per year in the latter half.
“Importantly, these reductions were achieved without impacting on beef output which actually increased over this time period.”
“If we look specifically at 2018, the base year for our climate reduction targets, the average finishing age of prime beef cattle was 26-months-of-age. This was reduced to 25.5 months in 2022, however, in 2023 finishing age increased to approximately the same levels as 2018.”
The beef enterprise leader at Teagasc, Grange, attributed this to two potential causes:
- Poor weather conditions over 2023;
- The move away from bull beef systems.
Dr. Crosson explained: “Levels of on-farm live weight performance really struggled in the second half of last year due to the very challenging weather conditions and that’s really coming through in our finishing age statistics.
“We would anticipate that would probably kick into this year as well because the performance of calves last year and indeed into the first half of this year was impacted.”
Move away from bull beef
The move away from bull-beef systems nationally was also discussed, and Dr. Crosson explained that bulls accounted for 23% of male prime cattle throughput in 2018 before falling to 14% last year.
He said: “If you move from a steer finishing system to a bull finishing system, you are going to reduce average finishing age” and said when farmers move from finishing bulls to steers, the average finishing age increases.
He said: “If we had the same proportion of bulls in 2023 as we had in 2018, that [average] finishing age would be 25.6 months.
“It is critical that reduced finishing age is achieved on farm, but something needs to change for it to occur – that’s either a policy or an industry measure.”
He emphasised that reducing age at finish “needs to be economically viable and attractive at farm level” and said that there is “a lot more work needed across all stakeholders from the farm sector to policy-makers and right through to industry to drive this measure forward”.
Why reducing age at finish is important
The Teagasc researcher explained that success in bringing down the average age of finish will not only result in lower emissions from beef production primarily through lower methane emissions, as the shorter the lifetime of a beef animal, the less methane that is invariably emitted, but will also allow for better economic returns for beef farmers, on account of lower feed and overhead costs.
Dr. Crosson explained that enteric methane which is produced through the digestion process of ruminant animals accounts for 65% of total emissions from beef production.
As dictated by climate policy, Irish agriculture is required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2030.
To identify the most appropriate actions to achieve this, Teagasc has developed the Marginal Abatement Cost Curve (MACC), with Dr. Crosson, commenting:
“Finishing age is one of our biggest measures within the MACC curve and if we put it in the context of our 2030 targets, reducing finishing age can account for up to the equivalent to 13% of our total requirement.”