A leading red meat scientist has challenged Brahman producers to develop a brand position in the marketplace or risk being left behind.
Speaking at the Australian Brahman Breeders' Association second annual conference, Armidale based consultant Dr Alex Ball said the industry had "no real brand" in the marketplace.
"The breed is going to be less a description of potential and more about brand position," Dr Ball said.
"In the beef market, a lot of your competitors in the marketplace like Wagyu, Angus and Shorthorn all have brand positions.
"They all have a branded product that sits in the marketplace - at the moment there is no real Brahman position in the marketplace.
"As an industry, you need to start thinking about 'how do we get that brand position and what is our brand position'."
Dr Ball said the competitiveness of the Brahman industry was being driven by the "beat of the consumer drum" in regard to how meat is marketed and sold, domestically and internationally.
"The beef industry and breed is changing quite dramatically," Dr Ball said.
Also read: Faces of the Blackall Show
"The consumer and community is starting to ask real questions about the brand of beef - particularly around quality, sustainability and welfare.
"In that sense we are going to see a lot of northern beef producers need to make much more informed decisions; be land managers rather than just beef producers.
"If you are not a technology addict, you need to be because there are emerging technologies that will allow you to look at the sustainability and welfare challenge much more succinctly than what we have in the past."
He urged producers to look beyond the single traits of the breed.
"If you're not thinking about the Brahman as a multi-purpose animal with a multi-faceted genetic opportunity then you are getting it wrong," he said.
"Simply focusing on growth rate or simply focusing on other traits without that real spectrum of activity is going to be to the detriment of the future Brahman."
Dr Ball said the recently released breed benchmark data from the US Meat Animal Research Centre highlighted "interesting challenges" for Brahmans.
The data benchmarked Angus, Hereford, Shorthorn, Brahman, Santa and Charolais cattle.
"The first one is birth weight - everyone is starting to ask questions about birthweight. The Brahman sits at top end of birth weight for most of the major breeds across the world," Dr Ball said.
"Brahman has the lowest marble score off all the breeds.
"The challenge for the Brahman industry is to increase growth rate, maintain mature cow size, change birth weight and increase marbling.
"If you don't have marbling then accept that you produce manufacturing beef.
"The industry has to start to think about consumers who are demanding more and more taste and eating quality aspirations from the product that they eat."
Dr Ball said the cattle of the future would focus on genes, and he urged producers to embrace genetics and genomics technology to remain competitive.
"Genomics is changing the world's beef industry and not only beef but every livestock and plant producing industry across the world," Dr Ball said.
"It is a technology for the Brahman industry to make the best out of and it's a technology that will enable you to be extremely competitive in a very competitive market."
