THE Queensland Government has joined with the northern beef industry supply chain to drive the industry to unprecedented levels of growth by 2020.
The 2020 Beef campaign was launched by Minister for Agriculture, Food and Regional Economies, Tim Mulherin.
Queensland is Australia's leading producer of beef and contributed $4.5 billion to the state economy in 2009-10. Under 2020 Beef, the vision is to increase the industry value to $10 billion and increase beef-related employment from 34,000 jobs to more than 60,000 jobs by 2020.
Growing the value of the whole beef supply chain, from improving employment opportunities to addressing infrastructure needs and attracting strategic investment, is a key aim of 2020 Beef.
DEEDI north region executive regional director Peter Mellor said the northern beef industry would be a special focus.
"Beef cattle production has a geographic footprint of more than 90 per cent of the land use in northern Queensland, and there are currently 2.5 million head on more than 2000 holdings," he said.
"The northern industry is dominated by extensive cattle breeding and growing operations - while the more intensive breeding, growing and fattening operations occur closer to higher rainfall areas near the coast.
"The northern beef industry also boasts the competitive advantage of being largely a low input grass production system. This will stand it in good stead as fuel costs to grow and harvest grains as a feed source impact on grain-feeding regions."
Peter Johnston, DEEDI Agri-Science Queensland's general manager for animal science, said DEEDI's northern based staff would focus on projects with industry that achieved best management practice and environmental sustainability, while ultimately promoting large- scale economic development.
"We are already moving in this direction with the concentration of our research efforts into Spyglass Station. This will allow closer collaboration between our researchers and will become a model for best practice management," Dr Johnston said.
He said the next immediate priority for DEEDI staff was to work with industry to compile a scoping study and an operational plan that would ensure the best use of resources, skills and expertise.
"We're going to be working with industry like never before to ensure that our researchers, marketing officers, employment officers and extension officers are working to agreed targets to achieve the 2020 Beef economic outcomes," Dr Johnston said.
"We will assemble reference panels with northern industry and contributors including research facilities, training providers to make sure their input is included, and future projects are 'ground-truthed' to optimise industry outcomes."
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