Australian Bovine Livestock Language Review Stage 1 – Desktop Discovery

Summary

Under the umbrella of the Red Meat Advisory Council, and facilitated by MLA, a Livestock Language Review Expert Group has been formed to oversee the Livestock Language Review. The project is conducted in stages and Stage 1 is this project, a desktop discovery, that provided a desktop assessment and mapping of the terms used in the Australian Bovine Livestock Language.

Objectives

Key elements that will be considered, but not limited to, across breeding stock, store stock, live export and slaughter cattle:

• Fat, muscle and frame scoring
• Yield descriptors
• Production descriptors – eg. Fertility, structure, conformation
• Age descriptors
• Marketing trading descriptors
• Breed descriptions
• Carcase language terms, ciphers and systems
• Welfare descriptions, including pregnancy status, horn status, temperament
• Raising claims
• Descriptors of hide condition and quality
• Animal health treatments – types and descriptions e.g. injection vs vaccinations.

Benefits to industry

This was completed based on a series of recommendations from the Beef Language Review White paper that was completed in 2016. This initial review will lead to further review and refinement of the bovine livestock language used in industry.

MLA action

This project is currently still in progress as the other phases outlines in the initial white paper are completed.

Future research

Further phases to finalise this project are to be completed.