91Pro

Abstract

With brexit, changing market dynamics and new a policy environment looming, Britain's beef farmers need to continue improving their productivity and competitiveness. This project aims to develop and test an interactive portal and Decision Support (DS) network to help UK farmers improve the profitability of beef finishing.

Description

The DS framework being developed and tested in this pilot project will enable beef farmers to benchmark against fellow contemporaries with regard to animal liveweight gain, nutrition analysis, soil health, grassland management, precision grazing and economic efficiency. Two key outputs from this project are to investigate if we can improve the prediction of liveweight gains in beef cattle, and can we improve the effectiveness and applicability of benchmarking through developing farm specific benchmarks (as opposed to general industry benchmarks). The network will implement continuous monitoring and KPIs to monitor efficiency and profitability, and to inform both business and livestock management decisions in real time. 

If you would like to find out more about this project or get involved, please contact  Professor Karl Behrendt.