CATTLE tick could very easily make its way into the north Australia beef industry if research into a vaccine is not completed.
Meat and Livestocks Association (MLA) R&D project manager for animal Health, welfare and biosecurity Dr Johann Schroder addressed the crowd at the Northern Beef Research Update Conference, and said the risk of cattle tick was real.
“One thing that looms quite large on the horizon is cattle tick,” Dr Schroder said.
“If producers respond to consumer demand for better beef eating quality, it’s almost invetible that we will introduce more Bos taurus into our genome which which increase our northern beef industry’s chance of tick.
”For me that means that we’ve got to really increase our efforts of the research for a cattle tick vaccine.”
Dr Schroder said the research half of the R&D needed for tick has already been completed.
“In the terms of cattle tick there’s not that much of a knowledge gap - we know what we are dealing with,” he said.
As part of MLA, Dr Schroder said funding is always an issue.
“Of the $5 that the Government collects from cattle sales in Australia - MLA gets $4.58 - of that, investment in R&D is $0.92,” he said.
“That’s just reality and that’s the way it is, but we have to cut our coat according to our cloth.
“That 12c from the levy translates to $5 million a year to invest in animal health and biosecurity research.”