Research hasn’t delivered dividends to livestock producers the way it has in the grain industry, but an Australian researcher says all that “can, should and will change.”
John Black told the Western Nutrition Conference in Saskatoon that livestock research has created the potential to improve production but has failed to deliver it to the farm.
“I know Australia the best, but the experience for the rest of the world isn’t unlike ours,” the agricultural researcher and consultant said.
“Our swine producers are stuck. Stuck at about 20 (weaned pigs) per sow (per year). They’ve been at 20 for two decades or more. We know they can do better. We know they can do 30, but they don’t.”
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Black said cattle producers are also failing to make the most of their pastures and potential for improved production and profitability.
“Despite some producers being able to use up to 85 percent of their pasture grown annually, the Australian average is 30 percent utilization.”
Black said cattle and hog profitability is a concern in Australia and North America.
“Those two cases (weaned pigs and pasture use) are the tip of the iceberg. There are many more.”
Black said in many cases the livestock research has been done but failures to commercialize the work or provide adequate extension to producers have limited the benefits.
Many research projects fail to look at what has been scientifically published beyond the past few years or to look at current work that is being done elsewhere and build on it.
Black said funding organizations are too eager to find successful projects and fail to apply critical analysis to proposed projects and consider how that science will be delivered to producers once it has been completed.
“And we need to follow up with its delivery.”
Black said research investments need to be made in areas where “quantum leap advances” could be made.
He cited genetics research as one area where large productivity gains can be made in short time periods.
He said computer software and electronics are also areas where significant changes in labour and animal handling have yet to be fully exploited.
He also criticized the loss of extension agrologists on both continents and the commercialization of university agricultural research programs.
“It undermines the basis of delivery and discovery.”
