OCT- Beef Survey

This survey was conducted as part of the Tasmanian Organic Farming Advisory Service project sponsored by the Organic Gardening and Farming Society of Tasmania, and funded by The Natural Heritage Trust.

Eight small to medium organic beef farms in Tasmania were surveyed to establish industry benchmarks. The beef farms utilised for the study had to be either certified organic, in-conversion to organic and had to have been managed organically for at least 5 years according to the National Standards (OPAC, 1989).

The benchmarks included indicators of productivity, health and reproductive performance and profitability. Typical of the emerging industry in Tasmania, of the eight properties involved, only two were dependent on the income from the organic beef enterprise to a significant extent.

All enterprises were self replacing herds primarily with late winter calving (one property calved in both autumn and spring). Most farms are virtually closed input systems as they did not use any significant amounts of organic fertiliser since commencement as organic farms.

Table 1. Farm background. Mean (and range) of 8 properties.
Years organic	Total area (ha)	Production area (ha)	Annual rainfall (mm)	Feed supplements (t)
7.4 (5-11)	198.9 (53-211)	141.7 (32-284)	1012 (510-1114)	96.2

Production area excludes house paddock, dams, laneways, bush blocks and shelterbelts.

The feed supplements consisted primarily of baled hay with only one property making silage. This equates to approximately 1.5t hay per breeding cow.

As a comparison, the industry breeding herd size in 1991 (DPIWE A Survey of the Beef Industry in Tasmania) was 231 cows per farm with stocking rate of 10.1 dse/ha.

Table 2. Mean (and range) of herd statistics based on 2-3 year averages.
No. of breeding cows	Stocking rate (dse/production ha)	Replacement rate (%)
64 (35-142)	17.5 (2-32.4)	19.6 (8-35)

The range in stocking rates reflects the annual rainfall properties receive leading to a large range about the mean.

Replacement rate is the number of heifers retained from the calving as replacements for the breeding cows.

Table 3. Reproductive performance (mean and range)
Calving duration (weeks)	Calving concentration at 3 weekly intervals (%)	Calving % at birth	Calving % at weaning
9 (5-11.5)	1^st: 63.1 2^nd: 28.8 3^rd: 13.1	86.4 (73-101)	82.8 (60-100)

The calving concentration gives an idea of the number of cows that missed conception on their first cycle after the bull goes in (i.e. conception rate).

Industry ‘key’ indicators are a 9 week duration of calving with 65% calving in the first 3 weeks, 25% in the 2^nd 3 weeks and the remainder within the last 3 weeks. Calving percentage (at birth) should be at least 95%.