FOSTERING effective red meat industry research and development is one thing, but it means nothing unless the technology or tool involved is being widely adopted by industry.

That was one of the recurring themes to emerge during Meat & Livestock Australia’s 2024 annual general meeting held in Tamworth yesterday afternoon.

The industry service delivery company has doubled its expenditure on the ‘adoption’ phase of R,D,E &A, lifting from $10 million five years ago to $20 million this financial year, stakeholders were told yesterday.

And a new board member approved by stakeholder members during the AGM has for the first time been appointed specifically for his skills in the area of R&D adoption and extension.

Joining the board, alongside Lachie Hart and Saranne Cook (see yesterday’s report)  is South Australian Dr Stephen Lee from the University of Adelaide, who has worked widely in the adoption field with beef and sheep producers across southern Australia.

MLA managing director Michael Crowley put considerable emphasis on the industry’s adoption challenge during his AGM address.

“It’s a matter of striking an appropriate balance between new R&D investment and driving adoption of previously completed R&D work,” Mr Crowley said.

“We think there’s still a need for us to consider further scaling-up adoption work, having doubled the industry’s investment in this field in the last few years,” he said.

Those additional funds have come from the industry’s on-farm R&D budget.

“We have built-in additional adoption components in beef, sheep meat and goat meat productivity, to combine into how we drive adoption through scaling-up proven programs like Producer Demonstration Sites, and Profitable Grazing Systems.”

“This is about measurable outcomes that we can aggregate into impacts, and it’s paying dividends when we look at the results shown in adoption outcomes report,” Mr Crowley said.

Producer Demonstration Sites had stood the test of time as powerful peer-to peer learning vehicles, leading to long-term practise change and decent rates of adoption.

Given that the industry had been wrestling with the challenge better R&D adoption for 20 years or more, Beef Central asked Mr Crowley whether there were any new approaches being considered.

“In the past, perhaps there was more stop-start between the R&D phase and the adoption phase. But what we will see is more integrated projects, where there are researchers, producers and service providers in the design and execution of the one project – right from the start of the investment,” he said.

“We can still do more R&D, but the aim is to get it into producers’ hands faster, and we support them in de-risking in making that practise change.”

Data and insights driving change

Mr Crowley said the industry’s adoption process was changing, as technology changes occurred, and feedback systems evolved.

“What MLA focuses on in the adoption space changes a little, as a result,” he said.

“It’s not the traditional approach of ‘here’s some great R&D outputs’, it’s about management practice. Data and insights will increasingly drive practice change among livestock producers, using technology to solve some of these problems, going forward.”

Recognising the importance of adoption

New MLA board director Dr Stephen Lee is also director of the SA Drought Hub. His primary areas of research interest are in maternal productivity of beef cattle and genomic testing in sheep and beef breeding programs, but he also works more widely across animal health, productivity, product quality, genetic improvement and animal welfare and wellbeing.

Some of his recent work has focused on procurement into feedlots to increase growth paths and reducing backgrounding time to improve MSA index performance and reduce GHG emissions.

Other work with colleagues has examined methods of reducing dark cutting incidence in southern pasturefed cattle, and methane-related work in understanding the potential of asparagopsis in grazing cattle and pregnant cows, and emissions impact on their offspring.

Dr Lee has led extensive adoption programs, and earlier in his career was a key deliverer of the More Beef from Pastures program. In recognition of that work, he received the Australian Institute of Agriculture Young Consultant of the Year award in 2021, later building a significant adoption program with his team at the SA Drought Resilience Adoption Innovation Hub, working on areas like containment feeding, feedbase improvement and mixed species pastures for extending the feedbase wider across the year.

“This year, of all years in SA, has shown how important our work is there,” he said.

Dr Lee said MLA’s budget decisions (see references above) of the adoption phase of the R,D,E & A process was clear recognition of its importance.

Two key areas of potential

He sees two key areas of potential in increasing adoption levels.

“The first is the peer-to-peer learning process, which we all know is so effective and works so well.”

“Building that around whole-of-farm opportunities will be important, around benchmarking, productivity and long-term facilitated change.”

“But secondly, as a more integrated supply chain develop across the industry and signals can be sent both ways along the chain, it will allow producers to make more informed and timely decisions around what management practices they are putting in place and why, to maximise productivity and profitability right across the chain.”

“Having those effective feedback systems in place to allow that will be key, as well as effective communication of those signals to allow better performance of cattle, through their life.”