Tasmania’s top MSA producers announced
07 March 2022
Pictured: David Packer - MSA Program Manager, Gillian and Kevin Johnson - Most Outstanding MSA Beef Producer (Band 1), Laura Garland – MSA Producer Engagement Officer, Sarah Stachan – MLA Group Manager of Adoption and Commercialisation
Tasmania beef producers who consistently deliver beef of superior eating quality were recognised on Friday night at the 2022 Meat Standards Australia (MSA) Excellence in Eating Quality Awards at Invermay.
Hosted by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA), the Awards recognise beef producers who have achieved outstanding compliance rates to MSA specifications, as well as high eating quality performance as represented by MSA Index results for MSA graded cattle during the 2019-20 and 2020-21 financial years.
MSA was developed by the Australian red meat industry to improve the consistency of eating quality of beef and sheepmeat. The system is based on almost 1.2 million taste tests by more than 171,000 consumers from 11 countries and takes into account all factors that affect eating quality from the paddock to plate.
Kevin and Gill Johnson, Preston, won Most Outstanding MSA Beef Producer (Band 1), which recognises producers turning off large MSA consignment volumes from any non-feedlot operation.
SA Holloway, Ranga, won Most Outstanding MSA Beef Producer (Band 2), which recognises producers turning off smaller MSA consignment volumes from any non-feedlot accredited operation.
Van Dairy, Woolnorth, won the MSA Progress Award for showing the greatest improvement in their MSA results since the last Awards series in 2019.
A new award was also presented this year for the highest scoring MSA Index for a carcase in each state. The Champion MSA Index Carcase for Tasmania was won by Robert Skipworth, Eighty Seventh Manterra, Yarra Creek, King Island.
MSA Program Manager, Dr David Packer, congratulated the Award winners and finalists.
“This year’s Tasmanian winners won their respective awards from a field comprising more than 2,400 MSA-registered producers in Tasmania who consigned cattle to the program in 2019-21,” Dr Packer said.
“More than 302,400 MSA cattle were consigned from Tasmania in 2019-21, representing 4% of all MSA graded cattle in Australia.
“Throughout Australia, more than 15,000 MSA-registered producers consigned over 7.1 million cattle to the MSA program during the 2019-21 period.”
Dr Packer said the achievements of MSA-registered producers in Tasmania reflected the ongoing improvements they are making to raise the eating quality of their cattle, boost the value of the beef industry, and ultimately meet consumer expectations.
“The online myMSA portal is one of the tools available to MSA-registered producers to continually improve the performance of their cattle,” Dr Packer said.
“Using carcase feedback, the myMSA portal allows producers to comprehensively benchmark the performance of their herd against the regional, state and national average, and by selecting for different production groups and carcase traits, such as feed type, hormonal growth promotant (HGP) status, sex, and ossification.”
To be eligible for the MSA Excellence in Eating Quality Awards, an MSA producer must have supplied volume (MSA cattle) in the top 50% percentile for that state and feed type; had at least average compliance rate for the state; and consigned MSA cattle at least once per year (2019-20 and 2020-21).
To find out more information about the MSA Program visit: https://www.mla.com.au/msa
MSA producers can access their carcase feedback at www.mymsa.com.au
