August 29, 2018

UK organisation funds five-year project for better cattle feeding guidelines
 

Acting on the outcome of an industry review, AHDB Beef & Lamb,  a UK-based organisation for beef and lamb levy payers, is funding a five-year collaborative project to deliver improved beef cattle feeding guidelines.

Evidence suggests that current guidance underestimates nutritional requirements in a number of areas. To address this, a much-needed update to the beef cattle feeding systems guide, AFRC 1993, is about to begin.

Funded by AHDB Beef & Lamb, the collaborative "Feed into Beef" project is being led by the Centre for Innovation Excellence in Livestock (CIEL), in partnership with Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) and the Agri-Food and Biosciences Institute (AFBI).

Dr Mary Vickers, AHDB Senior Scientist, said: "It is 25 years since the last major update to the guidance was published and both animal genetics and feeding systems have changed a lot since the underpinning data was recorded in the 1980s. Changes in market specifications, with major meat processors seeking younger animals with lighter carcases but with similar fat cover, is another key reason to update nutritional guidelines."

CIEL is working with various academic and industry partners to harness the best of current science and align it to industry needs. Both AFBI and SRUC have run studies on intake, growth and emissions from beef cattle over recent years. The large amount of data from these studies, alongside new concepts taken from overseas work, will be used to update models of feed intake, energy and protein requirements, rumen function, growth and body composition.

Other areas of work within the project will develop and update feed values needed to run the nutritional models, as well as exploring ways to include the increasing amount of farm-collected information in the rationing process.

"The project is still in the early stages but has been shaped to bring together industry, academic and commercial players across the beef industry to deliver a nutritional model that will enable beef farmers to increase production efficiency, reduce the feed cost and improve the environmental impact of beef production," Dr. Vickers said.

An open meeting in November will outline project scope in more detail and address questions potential partners may have.
 

- AHDB Beef & Lamb