President’s Perspective

Matthew Collins, CSA President

This year will be remembered for the number of challenges we have all faced as our nation rose and fought off the Covid surge that threatened so many communities throughout our country. The Charolais Society is so thankful that we have continued to receive full support from our members during 2021. This has enabled us to maintain services that are necessary for members to continue their day to day business. Australia wide there has been strong demand for cattle as the seasons have improved and farmers are looking to rebuild cattle herds.

This has been apparent with Charolais auction bull sales around the country experiencing very strong competition from buyers for the stud bulls offered for sale. The National result to date shows total gross Charolais Bull sales of $18.9 million representing an average sales value of $11,318. That is a significant increase over recent years. Another important trend is the level of competition for those bulls on offer throughout 2021. A significant number of sales this year have achieved total clearance of the bulls offered. I would like to congratulate all members on the quality of the bulls offered for sale during 2021 and the hard earned results achieved.

There has also been very strong prices being recorded for commercial Charolais cattle at sale yards throughout the country. These results are being spread across our Charolais membership and importantly include the commercial customers of those breeders. These trends we are observing are positive indicators for our breed showing that Charolais cattle are retaining market share across the country. It is becoming more apparent year after year that Commercial and Stud Bull buyers are driving and earning commercial benefits through investing in high performance sires.

These results follow on from the tremendous success Charolais achieved when it set the standard for the Beef Industry at the 2021 Beef Australia. At this event the Price family’s exhibit, Moongool Radical 26 took the honours for the Interbreed Champion Female. This award gives recognition of the quality of Charolais cows and the depth of our breed in Australia today.

The Society has seen further recovery occurring since the end of the drought with increased numbers of Charolais calf registrations with this years’ numbers expected to top 8,000. This story confirms the confidence breeders are experiencing by increasing their registered cow herds. The Society is also witnessing increased heifer inventory being registered. That completes the loop with breeders looking positively to the future.

At the present time all the indicators for the Charolais Breed are extremely encouraging. The Breed has experienced a very successful year with record market prices across stud and commercial markets.

The Board is strongly promoting genomic testing and this year we have witnessed a significant increase in parent verification and establishing 100k SNP profiles. As a result we are seeing a higher level of accuracy in our herdbook and this aligns with our goal of introducing Single Step Genomic evaluation into our BREEDPLAN evaluation. What is now clear is the early testing has proven very beneficial to the way forward. Board discussions have continued and we expect there will be further information available to members in 2022.

There have been discussions at a Board level seeking to encourage Charolais Youth involvement to their former status. The next step is to progress the guidelines and create the structure including mentors to provide support and facilitate feedback to the board.

The Charolais Selection Index revision process has been ongoing throughout the Covid -19 period and has now been completed with the new Indexes available for the 2022 Bull marketing season.

The feedback we have received from members and visitors to the Society’s recent purchase at Shop 6, 108 Dangar Street, Armidale has attracted many positive comments following the end of the Covid lockdown period. I thank you for quickly adapting to the situation we had to implement. The office is now operational and I would like to acknowledge the dedication and support that I have received from Hayley, Deearn and Colin over recent months as President. Finally I would like to thank all members for their support and commitment this year and wish everyone a Happy Christmas and Best Wishes for the New Year. Matthew Collins, President

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