Early results of a beef sustainability report card show the beef industry is “doing things well”, the chair of the Red Meat Advisory Council (RMAC) said.
The council has completed the public consultation phase of the Australian Beef Sustainability Framework, which is designed to enable the beef industry to measure its performance on a range of sustainability issues.
The four themes of the framework are animal welfare, economic resilience, environmental stewardship and people.
A report is due this month and RMAC chair Don Mackay said a shortlist of indicators showed that the industry was doing things well.
“We have had some preliminary discussions with some of the international organisations that have started to ask about this but I think you’ll find our report card will be very good,” Mr Mackay told the Northern Beef Producers Expo in Charters Towers.
“It provides an opportunity for us to put a baseline on what we do as an industry, what we are doing well and areas we need to improve on.”
Mr Mackay encouraged beef producers to keep improving and focus on the industry’s “significant strengths and competitive advantages”.
“We need to stay ahead of the public and government around a few things, like animal welfare,” Mr Mackay said.
“We have to improve the understanding and respect across the chain, for example, meat processors and the confrontational method of negotiation that exists in a lot of industry.
“It’s always going to be competitive but we need to have a more sharing arrangement regarding to information.”
