13 minute read
Confidence in Wagyu underpinned by recognition, innovation and the next generation
Three highlights from the 3-day WagyuEdge'23
A week of panel sessions, global speakers, semen sales, celebrations, farm tours and award-winning beef sees a cohort of international Wagyu breeders, supply chain representatives, academics and researchers come together from across the globe every year – all in the name of advancing Wagyu production worldwide.
Held in Sydney, WagyuEdge'23 welcomed the global Wagyu industry who flocked from Japan, China, the US, Britain, Indonesia, South America, New Zealand and across Australia to discuss, debate and design the future of the lucrative luxury beef brand.
What was, not so long ago, a cottage industry is now a truly global, highly-coveted, high end protein worth over $2billion in export value per year to Australia, a significant portion of the $14billion Australian beef industry.
But turn the clock back 20 years and just 20 large breeders in Australia had more than 50 full blood Wagyu cattle in their herds. Today, outside of Japan, Australia is home to the largest fullblood Wagyu herd, with 90pc of the beef exported to international high-end markets.
The breed continues to attract new entrants, with some 30 percent of attendees each year newcomers to Wagyu production. Attendance numbers at WagyuEdge23 were a third higher than the AWA’s previous conference in 2022, reflecting the growing interest in the 33-year-old cattle breed association, which notched up 1000 full members in January.
The conference isn’t just a chance to learn more about the developments of the luxurious meat industry while catching up with producers, breeders and friends. It also included the industry’s glittering branded beef competition award dinner (won by Kilcoy’s Jade Wagyu) and a Wagyu genetics auction aboard a boat in Sydney Harbour which delivered eye-watering averages. A black tie industry dinner was also enjoyed, where award-winning Wagyu tomahawks were evidence of the breed’s special place in the meat market. This was followed by a weekend of farm tours in the NSW Hunter and Cudgegong Valleys.
With the agenda addressing major opportunities, threats, trends and misconceptions affecting the industry, the conference tackled red hot challenges facing the red meat industry, launched new tools for genetic diversity and discussed global trends in agriculture and luxury proteins.
Here are three takeaways from the three days.
1. Coming together to tackle common challenges
Solutions to the anti-meat campaigns chorus
The anti-meat narrative is a threat to all cattle producers worldwide, according to Diana Rogers, author of Sacred Cow, and filmmaker and executive director at Global Food Justice Alliance. Anti-meat marketing strikes a poisonous list of often-unfounded questions into the mind of consumers. Does meat cause cancer? Can’t I just eat plants? Don’t cattle consume too much water? And aren’t they inefficient with feed? Aren’t the GHG’s driving climate change?
Diana laid those concerns to rest.
“Meat is sustainable nutrition,” Diana says, “Removing and reducing animal sourced food can result in serious nutrient deficiencies… Women and children, in particular, require the nutrients in meat… There’s zero evidence that reducing meat will increase human health.”
Diana’s work has been featured in The LA Times, The Boston Globe, and on the world famous Joe Rogan podcast where she addresses many of the powerful anti-meat campaign messages being touted by the likes of New York City mayor Eric Adams who supported banning meat in school meals, and the Meatless Monday campaign in the US.
They posit that global livestock production creates more greenhouse gas than the entire transport sector alongside nutrition-based messaging that encourages limiting meat in diets: “decrease your chance of getting diabetes by about 15 per cent. Just skip a serving of meat every day and replace it with a vegetable protein like black beans or tofu.”
Diana contends that much of this messaging is manipulated, out of context and oversimplifies the truth. With meat frequently positioned as “bad”, ultra-processed foods and veganism are becoming an increasingly attractive alternative to consumers and their children – at a cost.
“Some 84% of vegans give up after three months, and the vitamin B12 deficiency in vegetarians is alarming: 62% in pregnant women, 86% in children, 41% in adolescents, 90% in elderly,” she said.
Diana educated the crowd about the protein efficiency of beef over alternative sources and revealed that a 4oz steak will provide more than half the daily recommended intake of zinc and selenium and is a good source of phosphorus.
“Animal sources are the most complete protein sources because they contain all of the amino acids we need for optimal health. To get the same amount of protein in a 4oz steak, which is 181 calories, you’d need to eat 12oz of kidney beans plus a cup of rice, which equals 638 calories and 122 grams of carbs,” she said.
The rhetoric used by protein companies to argue that it’s most efficient to feed humans crops that are currently used for livestock feed was also debunked. Diana highlighted that 86 per cent of global livestock feed consists of things humans cannot digest – nearly half coming from grass.
Similarly, the messaging around the water-intensiveness of beef and the environmental benefit to eliminating beef entirely was scrutinised.
“Beef only requires 280 gallons of blue water – meaning from lakes, streams, or underground – per pound, which is less than the amount required to produce a pound of avocados, walnuts or sugar,” Diana said.
“A study found that if the entire US eliminated all animal products, GHG emissions would only be reduced by 2.6per cent, but would result in more overall calories being consumed, increased carbohydrates, and would lead to more nutrient deficiencies including calcium, B12, vitamin A, EPA, DHA and arachidonic acid.”
Wagyu – the Rolls Royce of the nutrition world
Dianas’s sentiments were echoed by The Food Scientist, Dr Anneline Padayachee. With a national profile and a persuasive voice on food and nutrition science, Anneline covers a range of aspects from the farm gate, to gut health, and mental health, giving meaning to nutrition, and identifying high value commercial opportunities for industry.
“The more I delve into this meat (Wagyu), the more I actually want it to be part of my diet,” Anneline said.
“The best analogy is the difference between a Rolls Royce and a stock standard Toyota. Toyota is great, Toyota is affordable, Toyota is easily replaced.
Dr Padayachee remarked that “we are not just talking about beef in general, we are talking about a particular type of beef and its luxurious nature. Wagyu is more like the Rolls Royce of food, and do we really need the Rolls Royce? Of course we do, it’s a tale of quality over quantity. Kind of like Wagyu”.
Plant-based can only go so far
Professor Paul Wood AO FTSE shared his concerns about the over-emphasis on alternative proteins like plant-based and cell-based meat alternatives.
“Don’t sell the farm just yet,” Paul told producers of the emergence of plant-based and cell-based meat.
The expenses involved in culture media, supplements and the capital cost of a facility can be hundreds of millions. Add in the strict bio-containment requirements of having a sterile environment, and the need to be renewable to be marketed as sustainable, and there’s no shortage of challenges for the viability of cell-based meat markets.
“In short, the cost of manufacture for cell-based meat has to come down over 1,000 fold,” Paul said.
“Billions of dollars are being poured by investors into an estimated 150 cultivated meat startups around the world, betting they will soon be able to produce lab-grown protein alternatives at a commercially viable scale while also attracting customers in large numbers.”
Paul shared some of the major issues for growth of the alternative protein market, including their inability to replicate the taste and texture of animal-based products or match the nutritional profiles for meat and milk. Sustainability claims are becoming increasingly challenging for these products to prove and capital markets are nervous. Rightly so – Beyond and Oatly both lost 80% of their share value in the last year, totalling some $20billion in valuation.
Paul predicts that by 2030 all food will be marketed on the basis of nutrition value versus environmental footprint. The inability to scale technologies at a reasonable cost will see cell-based meats and most plant-food products service the niche, high value markets.
Navigating a policy landscape without strong ties to ag
Biosecurity, workforce shortages, market access, labelling of alternative proteins, gene editing regulations, live export and safeguard mechanisms – all policy decisions that threaten the red meat sector. Worryingly, fewer and fewer decision makers have a link with agricultural and livestock industries. As Senator Susan McDonald told the wagyu conference, “what producers do is not well understood by the people in parliament.”
Macquarie Asset Management’s Liz O’Leary said that the agricultural industry also needs to unite around net zero. The sector has set a challenging target for sustainability and while great gains are being made, the narrative of farmers as environmental vandals needs to be quashed. Case studies and stories of the steps being taken and the wins being achieved should be celebrated and shared far and wide.
“ We need to be drivers, not recipients of change,” Liz said, citing improvements around fertiliser use, methane and machinery emissions.
“It’s all about step change – don’t let perfect get in the way of good.
“We operate in a very competitive global context. Our on farm strategy has to be connected with the customer and community, and that community and customer is changing. The developing world is our next customer, particularly China’s burgeoning middle class.”
2. New and improved tools, tests and tech for efficiency and accuracy
The Australian Wagyu Association has grown to be the world leader in innovation and delivery for the Wagyu Sector.
“Every dollar a member spends with us needs to deliver far more value in return for their investment with the AWA" CEO Dr Matt McDonagh says.
The launch of the world’s first F1 Wagyu genomic product was a highlight of the conference. Created through a science and industry partnership, the commercial DNA genomic test is designed for Wagyu content beef cattle to determine low genetic merit animals. An Australian Wagyu Association tool developed alongside CSIRO in partnership with Neogen, Wagyu Feeder Check is a tool for saving money, time and resources in feedlots for a more efficient red meat industry.
The new crossbred Wagyu prediction tool will enable first-cross producers and buyers to check their cattle for high - quality production and profitability traits.
“Wagyu Feeder Check is aimed at improving the resilience and sustainability of Australia’s Wagyu industry, It provides producers with the ability to test feeders at feedlot entry to estimate low genetic merit carcase performance animals,” Matt said.
Matt says that over five years, the innovation will provide sector wide savings of up to $58million by removing low performing progeny in year one and low performing sires who would contribute five per cent of progeny from years two to five inclusive.
“By identifying the bottom ten percent of underperforming feeders and removing these to short-fed programs, the industry will be saving up to $22million in feed costs and resources annually,” Matt explained.
“By identifying and removing five percent of underperforming sires, the industry will save $36million over the following four years.”
Other innovations like the genomic relationship matrix produced by MateSel were showcased. The matrix gives producers the ability to determine the relatedness of sires, helping them to manage diversity with incoming sire nominations, according to Australian Wagyu Association’s Katie Dailey who also discussed EBV accuracy improvements.
3. From Albany to Austin, Emerald to Japan, the future in Wagyu is thriving
The vibrant next generation of Wagyu producers shone on stage, revealing Wagyu’s future is in excellent hands. Meet five inspiring producers dedicated to perfecting the luxury beef brand:
Tomotaka Ando, Kosmos Farm, Japan
In the far north of Japan, where temperatures hit -20 degrees each winter, Ando San runs his family property established in 1986. Today, he has 500 black Wagyu for breeding and fattening and 500 black Wagyu F1, turning over some $6.5m per year with ten workers. Kosmos Farms is located on the west side of the vast Tokachi Plain, at the foot of the Hidaka Mountains, in Japan’s Hokkaido prefecture. Ahead of the game with technological advancements, including collars on cows to track oestrous cycle, the team at Kosmos farm use AI, web cameras and cloud data to manage disease, treatment, fertility, rumination periods, and determine best timings for inseminations.
Lucy Thomson, Marathon Wagyu, Emerald Queensland
Lucy Thomson from the Central Highlands of Queensland shared the story of pioneer Wagyu producers, the McCosker family who operate Marathon Wagyu, which sits on 10,000 acres across three properties. The McCosker family has been producing food and fibre in central Queensland for five generations. The stud, owned by Lucy’s parents Mike and Sue McCosker, plans to naturally and artificially join more than 1000 registered fullblood breeders in 2023. Lucy and her husband Laine manage operations at the family’s ‘Codenwarra’ property in Emerald, Queensland.
Josh Eilers, Ranger Cattle, Austin, Texas
Josh is the owner of Ranger Cattle, founded in 2011. He began this successful business during his first year at the University of Texas after finishing serving the US military as an Army Ranger for hundreds of special operation missions involving high-value targets throughout Iraq and Afghanistan. Among other honours, he earned a Purple Heart for injuries sustained during combat. Josh has since embarked on a journey to follow his passion for the beef industry and now aims to produce high-quality, pasture raised Fullblood Wagyu beef. His herd is free to graze over 300 acres and is free from harmful additives and hormones.
Lachy Gilmour, Irongate Wagyu, Albany, Western Australia.
The Irongate Wagyu herd was established from first generation daughters of Itoshigenami, Michifuku and Terutani 40/1. Back-to-back ET programs achieved a strong base herd of bulls and females. Today, the progressive family operation sees parents, siblings, partners and a tribe of tiny third-generation participants work functionally by ensuring each family member has a specific job role. Fortnightly team meetings are essential and work is outsourced to contractors. They’re highly active on social media in order to engage with community and industry, covering the good and the bad, and sharing their passion – genetics.
