Twelve Queensland Brahman breeding businesses launch Frontier Genetics

Frontier Genetics officially launched their collaborative approach to beef breeding at the Rockhampton Jockey Club last Thursday featuring Lookout, BlueGum, Tartrus, Boogal, Elrose, Oak Park, Tarramba, Wambiana, REB, Rockley, RV, and Trafalgar prefixes.

Board chair Rebecca Burnham, REB Grazing, Augathella, said the aim was to improve the profitability of northern beef herds by providing transparent data on Brahman breeding genetics, giving breeders the tools to identify and replicate outstanding performers.

She said the movement capitalised on years of research and progeny, with "robust" and "accurate" data collected by "road-testing" their sires across a herd of 5000 Breedplan measured Brahman females and in a range of environments.

They will run an online bull sale on October 26, featuring a catalogue of 118 red and grey Brahman bulls.

The group's ethos is that vendors must "responsibly raise and graze these bulls in a predominantly pasture-fed environment" which they said enhanced the fertility and adaptability of the bulls.

Their exact feeding regime will be fully disclosed in the catalogue.

To qualify, bulls must be above average in either Central Production Index or Live Export Index and have birthdate, sire verification, 400 and 600 day weight, scrotal circumference, genomics, pompes test and poll/hone DNA tests measured and recorded in Breedplan.

No raw data is listed and morphology testing is a must.

Guest speaker at the launch Geoff Murrell provided a corporate perspective at the launch after working in management roles for S. Kidman & Co., Paraway Pastoral Co., and Packhorse.

"If the Brahman industry doesn't make some significant changes in the next five years, it will be obsolete in Australia - that's how critical this is as that's how fast this stuff is moving," he told the crowd in attendance.

He thought the industry needed to leverage adaptability and productivity of Brahmans in the north, focusing on genetics that met the changing social and climatic environment of Australian beef production.

He indicated factors like reduced time on the planet, lower methane output, increased eating quality, do-ability, and fertility would be vital to proving the social license of a product.

"Natural capital is real and that movement is coming," he said.

"That money moving around the globe trying to influence those outcomes is real.

"What I can tell you is that as producers if we don't rock up at that abattoir door with a product that has some sort of sustainability, emissions reduction, whatever it's going to be statement, than that piece of product will be discounted severely," Mr Murrell said.

Guest speaker Prue Bondfield described Frontier Genetics as "bold" and said its members would change the future direction of the Brahman breed by prioritising seedstock genetics rather than making decisions based purely on phenotypes or physical observable traits.

Prue and her husband David operated Palgrove Charolais and Ultrablack stud and associated commercial cattle enterprises on several properties across Qld and NSW for over 34 years.

She said the introduction of Breedplan in the 1980s was a "game-changer" as it allowed for "objective breeding decision-making", which could now be successfully paired with phenotype and genomics to improve selection accuracy.

"When genomics came along for us it was things like polledness, we wanted to get polled into our cattle as soon as possible, while keeping the performance of the cattle.

"Now we have all those hard to measure traits through genomics and they add to the accuracy of our Breedplan," she said.

Ms Bondfield also spoke about the importance of staying ahead of social and global trends, with demonstrative data.

"A consumer doesn't care about your weight gain, all they want to know is if you're responsibly raising your cattle, environmentally responsible, and when they buy that meat that it's going to be tasty, juicy, and tender," she said.

In terms of supply chains, she indicated that feedback and data needed to be collected from all levels by the breeder, including consumer and feedlot data to improve connectivity in the supply chain.

She said the perfect supply chain would be one where data and genetics are given feedback all the way through with feedback coming via the consumer, feedlot, live exporters, agents, etc.

"Whoever it is, it needs to be a whole story," she said.

She gave the example of Angus in southern Australia having done this well, and included that genetic gain in the breed had been much faster as they looked to replicate genetic superiority across a very large scale of animals.

Overall she wished the group luck and advised them to stay relevant, stick to their philosophy, and create a place for the Brahman breed to become imperative to the supply chain.