Integrity Systems Program Impact Assessment (2015-2020)

Summary

MLA's Integrity Systems Program assists MLA to foster the prosperity of the Australian red meat and livestock industry by protecting its disease-free status and underpinning the marketing of Australian product as clean, safe and traceable. It also helps Australia capture price premiums from customers and consumers willing to pay more for higher levels of product assurance.

MLA's Integrity Systems Program integrates scientific research with program delivery and support systems and involves a whole of industry approach to the management of food safety, traceability, biosecurity and product integrity.

As part of MLA's Statutory Funding Agreement, a 5 year Impact Assessment is required for all of MLA's marketing and R&D investments. An Impact Assessment was conducted across the activities and investments made in MLA's Integrity System Program for the period 2015 - 2020.

Objectives

The objectives of this project were to:

• review the assumptions used to conduct the Product Integrity 2010-2015 impact assessment
• validate the current return on investment (ROI) model and assumptions being used for the 2020 impact assessment and make recommendations for improvement
• update and improve upon the analysis of price premiums within the current ROI model based on price received for similar (forequarter) cuts in markets where Australia competes directly with other suppliers with lower standards
• review and improve upon the methodology used for assessing the relative attribution of price premiums to product integrity, and therefore MLA's Integrity Systems Program
• conduct an economic assessment aligned to MLA's broader 2020 impact assessment to demonstrate the value of 2015-2020 investment in MLA's Integrity Systems Program.

Key findings

The Impact Assessment identified total benefits from MLA's Integrity Systems Investments during the period 2015-2020 as:

• avoided disease costs: $364.99M
• export market price premiums: $134.27M
• market access science research: $164.14M
• total Benefits: $663.40M

Benefits to industry

The Australian red meat and livestock industry has for many years invested in the development and implementation of science and outcome-based integrity programs that underpin Australia's reputation as a supplier of safe and wholesome red meat products in both our domestic and international markets. The Integrity Systems Program Impact Assessment outlines the economic impact of the investments made by MLA during the five year period 2015-2020.

MLA action

The outcomes of the Integrity Systems Program impact assessment have been incorporated into MLA's 2015-2020 impact assessment, which forms a part of MLA's Statutory Funding Agreement.

Future research

An ex-ante impact assessment of the Integrity Systems 2025 Strategic Plan is currently being conducted, along with further enhancements to the ROI model to enable more regular impact assessments to be conducted across the Integrity System Program investment areas.