The economic potential of growth-promoting agents in beef
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Authors
Date
1984-06
Type
Discussion Paper
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Fields of Research
Abstract
Profitability in beef farming, as in most other sectors of
agriculture in New Zealand, is under pressure. Without having recourse
to price fixing on world markets, farmers can only relieve the pressure
by cost reducing or income enhancing management practices. One such
practice which is widespread in most of the beef producing nations of
the world, is the administration of anabolic or growth promoting agents
(GPAs) to beef cattle.
New Zealand farmers have had relatively limited opportunity to
take advantage of this technique. Concern on the part of some
importing nations, particularly within the EEC, regarding the
possibility of harmful residues in meat and other tissues of animals
treated with anabolic agents has prompted the New Zealand government to
adopt a conservative attitude towards licensing anabolic hormones as
GPAs. Some synthetic oestrogens derived from stilbene which have
anabolic effects were permitted as veterinary remedies only, but these
were banned outright in 1981. At present only one GPA (RALGRO®,
distributed in New Zealand by Wellcome (NZ) Ltd) is fully licensed for
use in New Zealand.
As the concern over residues has been reduced by experience, trial
results and product development, acceptance of GPAs in most countries
has spread. In 1984 only Italy, the Netherlands, Greece, Algeria and
the Canary Isles specifically ban imports of meat from animals treated
with anabolic hormones. Section 20 of the 1983 Third Country
Veterinary Directive of the EEC effectively applies the same ban to all
EEC member states, but it has been suggested (McKenzie, 1983) that an
EEC review of GPAs currently under way could result in a wider range of
the products which are currently available being approved.
The United States, which is the major purchaser of New Zealand
beef, places no limitations on the production or importation of beef
treated with registered GPAs. However more than half of the beef
offals exported from New Zealand are destined for EEC member states.
Therefore, EEC regulations pertaining to GPAs are relevant to New
Zealand beef production.
Two companies have recently applied to the Ministry of Agriculture
and Fisheries for the right to market GPAs under license in New
Zealand. These are Elanco Products (NZ) and Co., and Syntex
Laboratories (NZ) Ltd., intending distributors of COMPUDOSE@ and
SYNOVEX® respectively. Provisional licenses to carry out field trials
have been granted, with full licensing dependent upon a satisfactory
outcome of the trials, and upon the terms of any new directives which
may arise from the EEC review. It therefore seems possible that a
range of growth promotants will shortly be available, which may assist
the New Zealand beef fanner to increase the productive capacity and
profitability of his enterprise. Many of the large number of published trial results evaluating the
performance of beef animals treated with growth promotants have
compared the carcase returns from treated and control animals, but
these trials have most often been carried out in intensive farming
situations (mainly feedlots) in which at least a portion of the total
dry matter (DM) consumed is in the form of high energy concentrates.
In a feedlot situation, feed is a variable input. In a grazing
situation, the composition and availability of feed are determined
primarily by climate, season, and the area and physical capability of
land, as well as by management decisions. Management of the feed
resource in a feedlot does not therefore require the same judgements
concerning the timing of utilisation, or distribution and interactions
between different classes of livestock, as on a pastoral farm. The
difference between intensive management systems and the pastoral
management usually practised in New Zealand is such that economic
evaluations of performance in one system may have limited application
to the other.
Increasing production by physiological modification of livestock,
as an alternative to breeding or environmental change, is receiving
increasing emphasis in New Zealand. Examples of this type of
modification include the administration of growth promoting and
fertility inducing compounds to farm animals. But the experience of
some farmers, and some trial results indicate that realising the
profits suggested by the distributors of these compounds, without
adapting management policy to accommodate a change in productive
capacity, can be elusive. A recent article in the New Zealand
Farmer on the wide range of income effects from use of
fertility inducing drugs in ewes is a case in point.
The extent to which growth promotants can enhance either the
productive capacity or the profitability of beef grazed from weaning to
slaughter, as a secondary enterprise on a New Zealand sheep beef farm
has not, to the knowledge of the author, been clearly established.
This Discussion Paper is intended for farmers and people involved
in agricultural extension work. It has a two fold purpose:
Firstly, it identifies some of the factors which interact in
determining the profitability of growth promotants as a
production enhancing technique, and then tests their possible impact on
a whole farm basis.
Secondly, it examines the sensitivity of profits where
growth promoting agents are used, to changes in one parameter affected
by management policy; namely, availability of feed.
It is hoped that this study will provide an illustrative example,
of which the principles may be applied to other types of physiological
modifier.