Genetics and data are the key to the future

“Five years ago, people wondered where meat and milk were headed,” Mr Hunt said.

“Today we are in a much better place.

“We’re in a business with good growth prospects and increased consumption and demand, including non-traditional markets, and we’re seeing an incredible rate of technology advancement.”

But Mr Hunt warned conference attendees there are challenges ahead, including labour shortages, beef and dairy cycles and increased exposure to international trade and geopolitical risks.

He urged farmers to look at environmental and social challenges as opportunities and to continue making rich, nutritious, cost-efficient protein products to counter a shift to other proteins.

“Farmers have an opportunity to win by driving sustainable efficiencies across cows, herds and farming systems but ‘it can’t just be technology for technology’s sake’.

“The farmer of the future needs an efficient and sustainable operation, optimise their herd and individual cow performance in an era of growing complexity, and achieve higher output with lower emissions and improved animal welfare.”

Mr Hunt said farmers would continue to use data in an advanced way to make better decisions.

“Not using technology will be like milking by hand. You can do it, but it will be difficult to survive.

“Without data, there is almost nothing we can do. Data is the foundation of everything.”

He also urged farmers to continue to create data to help with genetic advancement.

“We want to continue to make our products more consumer friendly, more acceptable and at the right price and with the right characteristics, and we need to keep telling the story of cow improvements in such areas as heat tolerance, disease resistance.”

Mr Hunt said farm business had become more complex and would become even more complex over the next decade.

“Successful producers of the future will be the ones that manage that complexity, they will have information at their fingertips and management tools and resources and advisors showing them how to use that data.”

He told the conference that US producers were using a lot more beef semen and sexed semen and predicted more use of IVF and embryos to create top end replacements instead of sexed semen, and a possible move to genetically advanced bulls in regions that struggle to find technicians to deliver AI while still needing to improve genetics.

“Conventional semen is now a distant third in US and ET and IVF are experiencing incredible growth. Producers are choosing tens of thousands of embryos to make their replacements.

“They’re making the bet that genetics will be the differentiator going forward.

“We need to increase our vigilance on this to make out products better, our animal welfare better and consumer friendly.

“Bringing together data will help achieve this.”

In genetics, the biggest gains will be in animal health.

“There will be gains in productivity and efficiency and sustainability, but for producers we need to make sure longevity and animal health and welfare are in our sights.

“If we can breed for improvements, we should continue to do that.”

Mr Hunt predicted AI growth with generative capabilities would be huge for the industry, there would be more emphasis on improving beef genetics globally, farmers would want a lower replacement rate to improve their footprint and more farmers would graze their animals.

“I believe grazing will continue to increase globally. We became partners with Genetics Australia because we believe the system used here is going to increase,” he said.

Genetics Australia entered a Joint Venture with URUS Group in 2022.

Mr Hunt said Australia should market itself to the world as a leading grazing business.

“As the combination of grazing and beef on dairy becomes more important, Australia has a position to play.”

Mr Hunt said he was impressed by the level of collaboration in the Australian industry.

“Collaboration is going to be required to take us to the next level and there has been plenty of that on display at this conference.”