Project delivers organic beef boost

Jointly funded by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) and Australian Organic Meats (AOM), the $300,000 project wrapped in Roma on Friday when 25 beef producers from southern, central and western Queensland gathered to learn more about becoming organically certified.

Simone Tully from Australian Organic Meats told participants that demand for Australian organic products was growing rapidly.

She said current market demand existed for about 1 million of the Australian cattle herd to be managed under certified organic standards but estimated that less than 500,000 head are certified.

“Australia represents 28pc of all organic land worldwide but only 1.8pc of the global organic market so there is huge opportunity to expand,” she said.

Ms Tully said the last figures on Australian organics from 2012 showed that the organic food industry was worth $1.2 billion, including $400 million of product imported due to a lack of local supply.

Ms Tully said that organics represented just 0.9pc of the total food industry in Australia, worth $130 billion annually.

“That $1.2 billion will probably grow to about $4 or $5 billion in the next few years but it will depend on how quickly we can get it there,” she said.

“In a mature market like Germany, the organic industry now holds 19pc of the food sector so that’s the kind of growth you see in those more established markets.”

Ms Tully said barriers to the growth of the organic beef market include a lack of supply, a lack of economies of scale and a lack of funding to drive R&D, lobbing and extension.

Organic Systems and Solutions has been contracted to run the organic beef project and CEO, Marg Will said close to 150 producers had attended four information days across Queensland, NSW and WA over the past 24-months.

Ms Will said the project was on track to reach its target of drawing an additional 100 producers or 30,000 head of cattle into the organic market.

“Those milestones are on target to be met,” she said.

“This project was really critical in terms of meeting the growing demand for Australian organic beef. It was particularly critical for the AOM group to meet their customers’ forward contracts.”

Work will now begin on the final phase of the project which will see the Resource Consulting Service (RCS) undertake the first comprehensive organic beef benchmarking project.

RSC will benchmark the performance of 12 organic producers against 12 producers in transition to organic certification and 12 conventional or non-organic producers.

“It’s only anecdotal that people make more money out of organics at this point in time so we want to look at all the costs associated with becoming certified and running an organic operation as well as the returns and compare those to running a conventional operation,” Ms Will said.