Posted on 10/15/2013 10:40:06 PM PDT by TexGrill
Former Australian cattle station manager Michael Sheehy has some singular advice for the Indonesian government if it wants to achieve self-sufficiency in beef: Follow the model of the booming palm oil industry and put cattle raising in corporate hands.
As with most of Indonesia's agriculture, the livestock industry is largely confined to low- technology operations - backyard feedlots that mean a higher cost of production and higher prices for consumers as a result.
The Indonesian government has used tariffs and quotas to protect local farmers from international competition. This is a short-term measure which, judging by the current beef price which once reached more than 100,000 rupiah (US$8.80) per kilogram, is clearly not working and does nothing to encourage greater productivity.
Indeed, Jakarta's recent decision to scrap quotas for live cattle imports is a belated admission that self-sufficiency at this point is nothing more than an illusion and that a new approach is needed if it is ever to be achieved.
Breeding programmes have failed miserably. In fact, as part of the backlash against Canberra's brief suspension of the cattle trade in 2011, the government even rejected thousands of imported breeders because they didn't have pedigree certificates.
Sheehy is now the chief operating officer of Jakarta-based Natural Resources Indonesia. His exhaustively researched ideas fit well with those of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who recently called on Australian beef producers to invest in cattle ranches in Indonesia.
(Excerpt) Read more at thejakartapost.com ...
I have no problem with the two way street approach outlined in this story. It is the Jakarta Post and they of course will slant it from an Indonesian POV. All I have heard prior to this is China and Indonesia wanting to buy up Australian cattle stations - import their own workers under our 487 visas and there be no net benefit to the Australian economy.
Mel
Another word of advice to Indo’s beef ranchers (!): let them get some fat on their bodies! Good grief! Indo beef is so extremely lean that you cannot chew it. Toughest beef ever. Dang near broke a tooth last week.
Also, please, do more work at making the livestock healthier. When I eat, I really have no desire to consume a parasite which will in turn eat me. Yeah, fair is fair, but I’m just not interested.
Let them eat pork!
Cattle have one huge advantage over other livestock.
Cellulose.
Cattle spend most of the day eating pretty much whatever vegetable matter they can find. They can do it, they don’t have a very specific diet, because cattle don’t actually “eat” plants.
Cattle eat foods with cellulose because the bacteria/yeast/fungi in their gut digest and LUV the stuff.
Cattle don’t live on grass. They end up “eating” (deriving their nutrition) from the bacteria/yeast/fungi that die in their gut.
And out of all the organic materials on the planet, the number one, the largest and most extensive in tonnage, is, by far, good ole cellulose!
Actually, we do eat pork. However, it too may have some additional protein. Further, inquire carefully what that pig ate and how it was slaughtered. I have had so much pork here that had been fed fish and then slaughtered over a fire, somehow, of tobacco. Ain’t no amount sauce made that pig taste good.
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