This is a question being asked by many beef farmers and industry roleplayers debating calls for the introduction of a meat grading system to complement the current classification system.

It will also be dealt with in detail during the Aldam Stockman’s School in the Free State next month.

Organiser Dr Michael Bradfield says production of high quality meat requires a holistic approach. This ranges from optimising breed components and management of young animals to things like use of hormones or steroids, among others:

“So what we are going to be doing at the Stockman’s School is to put all of these things – unpack, if you want to call it, the whole value chain and understand every aspect of the value chain that will be able to produce the product that we want at the end of the day.”

He says the school provides a forum for roleplayers across the value chain to share and learn from each other:

“We have all the representatives of the value chain there. We have emerging producers, the commercial producers. We have the feedlot association represented, we have the abattoirs represented and then we have the retailers represented.

“So we have forum where we can all learn from the international guest speakers and South African speakers. We have 30 South African speakers.”  

The theme this year is: Vision 20/20 and beyond, meeting consumer requirements.

OFM News