Australian Bovine Livestock Language review – industry consultation

Summary

This project supported the facilitation of consultation meetings with beef industry organisations for the Livestock Language Review expert group to present and obtain feedback on a proposed approach and structure for the National Bovine Livestock Language.

Objectives

This project consisted of the consultant meeting with the expert group to develop a presentation to use within the industry consultation to ensure all components of the review were comprehensively covered and the facilitation format met the needs of the work.

The consultant facilitated the industry consultation meetings with beef organisations and reported back to the expert group on the outcomes from these meetings to help inform the expert group on an approach for a National Bovine Livestock Language.

Key findings

Consultation meetings occurred directly with 19 organisations. Each consultation involved discussing feedback on the proposed Guidelines. As a result of the consultations, the project suggested the following actions should be considered by the Expert Group in relation to the Guidelines:

• a revised version of the Guidelines should be prepared and taken back to industry, whichs should include the development of a succinct companion document that identifies the changes made as a result of the initial consultation
• an additional supporting document that provides more detail on the rationale of the Guideline components is also suggested.

Benefits to industry

A recommendation from the Beef Language review was for the expert committee to be developed to review the Bovine Livestock Language. The purpose of this group is to create a section within the existing language, standardise terminology and ensure common description across all trading and production categories.

This benefits industry as it standardises the language used by all parties so that carcase and chiller assessment data can be linked to genetic evaluation programs. This project supports this work.