Farm Tender

Report says $1.3 billion benefit for graziers implementing remote cattle monitoring

By Sean Starling

Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) has recently received a commissioned report on the financial and social value of graziers implementing remote cattle monitoring.

However, until the tags can be delivered at scale, with reliability, with connectivity solutions to suit Australian conditions, and at a price point, and or a business model that incentivises producers to adopt, the benefits will not be realised.

The report determined, that at the time of writing and with the information obtained, there is still not a single offering in its current format, and or business model, that is ready for risk free Australian producer adoption.

Across the several station activities..."...pastoral beef producers articulated average benefits of 6.8% increase in revenue and 3.8% cost savings."

Benefits included:
   * detecting predation events
   * cow pregnancy status
   * basic animal location
   * genetic matching and bull activity
   * managing landscape utilisation
   * water related behaviours
   * detection of calving

Monitoring only a small number of livestock in a herd have the potential revenue benefits and reduced the cost savings.

Estimates of the benefits to Australian producers using weighted adoption rates resulted in accumulated benefits of the industry of $280 million to $800 million for the beef industry over 10 years. For the Australian sheep industry its was $204 million to $501 million over the same period.

Well done: Mark Trotter, Amy Cosby, Jaime Manning, Michael Thomson, Tieneke Trotter, Patrick Graz, Elle Fogarty, Alexandra Lobb, Alan Smart.