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Indonesia has a number of cattle breeds that have certain advantages as meat-producing cattle with high adaptability to the local environment. Local beef cattle breeding has now been carried out by the government through technical implementation unit. Efforts to build local cattle breeding still need to be improved to be able to meet sustainably the demands of local cattle breeding stocks for the farmers. However, beef cattle breeding business is less attractive to investors because it is economically less profitable and requires a long maintenance time compared to the fattening business. This paper aims to provide an overview of thoughts in an effort to improve the performance of local beef cattle breeding in Indonesia. In supporting the local cattle breeding program, the role of central and regional governments still has to be dominant mainly in the establishing of breeding centers as the core and policies related to the operationalization of activities involving farmers and other stakeholders.

The carbon footprint of beef cattle is presented for Canada, The United States, The European Union, Australia and Brazil. The values ranged between 8 and 22 kg CO2e per kg of live weight (LW) depending on the type of farming system, the location, the year, the type of management practices, the allocation, as well as the boundaries of the study. Substantial reductions have been observed for most of these countries in the last thirty years. For instance, in Canada the mean carbon footprint of beef cattle at the exit gate of the farm decreased from 18.2 kg CO2e per kg LW in 1981 to 9.5 kg CO2e per kg LW in 2006 mainly because of improved genetics, better diets, and more sustainable land management practices. Cattle production results in products other than meat, such as hides, offal and products for rendering plants; hence the environmental burden must be distributed between these useful products. In order to do this, the cattle carbon footprint needs to be reported in kg of CO2e per kg of product. For example, in Canada in 2006, on a mass basis, the carbon footprint of cattle by-products at the exit gate of the slaughterhouse was 12.9 kg CO2e per kg of product. Based on an economic allocation, the carbon footprints of meat (primal cuts), hide, offal and fat, bones and other products for rendering were 19.6, 12.3, 7 and 2 kg CO2e per kg of product, respectively.

Beef production is widespread all over the world but the legislation regarding welfare area of beef cattle is not specifically addressed and fully implemented. Beef cattle welfare assurance affects not only animals but is also a question of ethics and products quality. Today, it is possible to determine welfare quality state in feedlots through relevant methodology such is Welfare Quality®Assessment Protocol applied to fattening cattle. It enables implementation of improvement strategy regarding identified risks and causes of poor welfare. Different literature sources, based on welfare risk assessment, indicate major welfare problems in cattle kept for beef production. According to them, respiratory diseases are usually linked to overstocking, inadequate ventilation, mixing of animals and failure of early diagnosis and treatment. In addition, digestive disorders are associated with intensive concentrate feeding, lack of physically effective fiber in the diet whilst behavioral disorders comes as a consequence of inadequate floor space, and commingling in the feedlot. Particular welfare problems are related to the implementation of animal husbandry methods mutilation, which expose animals to pain and suffering. This paper gives a review of most important beef cattle welfare topics including recommendations for its assurance and improvement.

AbstractCattle producers and markets faced massive disruptions due to COVID‐19 in both supply and demand for cattle and beef. Restaurant and food service shutdowns affected beef demand. Closures and slowdowns of beef processors caused a logjam of live cattle in the supply chain. The resulting effects on cattle producers at all levels were lower prices and abnormal cattle flows, but the magnitudes of those effects were not homogenous across size and type of cattle. In this article, we detail how the COVID‐19 pandemic has affected cattle markets and cattle producers across the different sectors. We also discuss policy responses and considerations.

The aim of the current study is to assess three integrated systems presenting different eucalyptus tree densities due to animal and forage production. The following integrated systems were assessed: crop-livestock-forest with 357 eucalyptus trees ha-1 (ICLF1); crop-livestock-forest with 227 eucalyptus trees ha-1 (ICLF2); and crop-livestock with 5 remnant native trees ha-1 (ICL). The randomized block experimental design was applied in a split-plot scheme with four replicates. The Average Daily Gain (ADG, g animal-1day-1) and the live-weight gain per area (LWG, kg ha-1) were applied to analyze animal performance, which was set by weighing the animals every 28 days (the animals previously fasted for 16h). Forage yield was higher in ICL during fall and winter; in summer, it did not differ from ICLF2. There was no forage yield difference between the ICL and ICLF2 systems in any of the assessed seasons; summer was more productive in ILPF1 than other seasons. The highest leaf crude protein contents (CP) in summer was recorded in systems ICLF1 and ICLF2, and the highest value recorded in fall was found in ILPF1; the lowest was found in ILP. On the other hand, the highest leaf NDF contents in summer were found in ILP. The highest ADG were found in summer. The highest LWG values recorded for the ICL and ICLF2 systems were collected in summer and fall; there was no difference in any of the three systems in winter. The LWG was higher in all system in summer. The ICLF2 emerged as the system (with trees) most appropriate for beef cattle production. Despite the shading interference on forage production, such condition is compensated by the best nutritional contents such as CP. The ICLF2 system allowing an annual LWG of 83% in relation to the ICL system during the fifth year of establishment of the systems.

This research describes and analyses how smallholder crop livestock farmers in rural Ea Kar, Vietnam, were able to take advantage of the rising demand for meat in urban centres and transform cattle production from a traditional, extensive grazing system to a more intensive, stall-fed system that supplied quality meat to urban markets. The traditional grazing system produced low-quality animals that could only be sold for local consumption. Introduction of the concept of farm-grown fodder production enabled farmers to produce fatter animals, achieving higher sale prices, and reduce labour inputs by moving from grazing to stall-feeding. These benefits convinced farmers, traders and local government that smallholder cattle production could be a viable enterprise and so stimulated stakeholder interest. Within 10 years, the way that cattle were produced and marketed changed considerably. By 2010, more than 3,000 smallholders had adopted farm-grown forages and stall-feeding, and many produced high-quality beef cattle. Traders had been able to develop access to urban markets as farmers were able to produce animals that satisfied the stringent quality requirements of urban markets. In addition to the underlying driver of strong market demand for quality meat, several factors contributed to this transition: (i) a convincing innovation – the use of farm-grown fodder – that provided immediate benefits to farmers and provided a vision for local stakeholders; (ii) a participatory, systems-oriented innovation process that emphasised capacity strengthening; (iii) a value chain approach that linked farmers and local traders to markets; (iv) the formation of a loosely structured coalition of local stakeholders that facilitated and managed the innovation process; and (v) technical support over a sufficiently long time period to allow innovation processes to become sustainable.

Three experiments were conducted with the objective of evaluating the effects of supplementation (concentrate or mineral supplementation), supplementation strategy (continuous or strategic supplementation) and gender class on the ingestive and diurnal behaviour of grazing beef cattle. To evaluate the effect of the supplementation (Experiment 1) and the gender class (Experiment 3) on their diurnal behaviour, behaviour visualisations were performed by two people at observation stations outside the picket area with the aid of binoculars. The animal behaviour was classified as: supplement intake, grazing, water intake, standing ruminating, standing idle, lying ruminating, lying idle and walking. To evaluate the effect of the supplementation strategy on the ingestive behaviour of the supplement (Experiment 2), refusals of the supplement were weighed for six consecutive days at different times (20, 40, 60, 90, 120, 180, 240, 480 and 1,440 minutes) after the concentrate was supplied. The intake of concentrate per animal, at each observation time, was calculated by subtracting the weight of the scraps at that time from the total weight of the batch of supplement provided on the day, and dividing the result by the number of animals in each batch. Finally, a logistic model was adjusted for each treatment. A 10% significance level was adopted for all statistical procedures. Concentrate supplementation reduced the time that the animals spent grazing. The continuous supplementation strategy affected the uniformity of the supplement intake speed, without affecting the average speed or the total supplement intake. The gender class of the animals also influenced their diurnal behaviour, castrated males spent more time lying, compared to females. The specificities of cattle behaviour should be considered when delineating the supplementation of grazing cattle, since the type of supplement, previous supplementation and gender class interfere with their behaviour.

The objectives of this study were to analyze the competitiveness of the beef cattle farming in Gorontalo District, to analyze the impact of government policies on competitiveness and to analyze the impact of changes in input and output factors of production to competitiveness. Primary data were obtained from 60 respondents were selected using non-probability sampling method. The analysis methods used were Policy Analysis Matrix (PAM) and sensitivity analysis. The results of the analysis showed that the commodity beef cattle in Gorontalo District has a weak competitiveness. The impact of policy to the beef cattle farming showed that the farmers are not protected by government policies (EPC<1). The impact of changes in input and output of production on the competitiveness showed that: 1) the increase in the price of domestic meat and the world respectively 8.44% and 10% will increase the competitiveness, 2) an increase in the price of feeder cattle at 3.28%, forage feed costs by 10% and labor costs by 10% will impact beef cattle farming do not have a competitive advantage but still have a comparative advantage, and 3) increase in meat production about 12.72% will increase the competitiveness of beef cattle.

The lack of capital for investment and limited access for small beef cattle farming to obtain credit from financial institution have contributed to the occurrence of share-beef cattle in rural areas. Through share-beef cattle pattern, the farmers (tenant) can rent livestock from other parties (individual nor government) within a share-beef cattle contract agreement. The purposes of this study were to determine the technical efficiency and the factors which influence the inefficiency from 108 small beef cattlebreeding, which consists of 59 farming operated by owner and 49 operated by tenant. The unit samples were selected by snowball sampling method and analysed by Stochastic Frontier Production. Our study showed that the average technical efficiency of beef cattle breeding operated by owner was at 0.73, otherwise operated by tenant was at 0.790. The inefficiency of beef cattle breeding operated by owner has negatively corresponded to the number of cows, the farmer age, the age of cow and the application of artificial insemination (IA), but positively corresponded to allocation of family labour and level of farmer education. The inefficiency of beef cattle breeding operated by a tenant has negatively corresponded to the application of artificial insemination (AI). Specific conclusion of the study was the technical efficiency level of small beef cattle breeding was not only affected by the ownership of beef cattle but also by the pattern of share-beef cattle. The share-beef cattle based on share income(50:50) may improve the value of technical efficiency compared to share-beef cattle based on share in-kind (share-beef cattle revolving cow or share-beef cattle revolving calf).