The Australian pasture industry is bigger than ever. Much of this year-on-year growth is thanks to local and international companies investing in research and development for new varieties. But it's also because the pasture end-users – producers, understand the value of choosing the best-fit varieties and cultivars for their production needs.
About 18 months ago, the Australian Seed Federation released the results of a research project that assessed the volume and value of the Australian pasture seed industry for the first time. This project has now moved to phase two, which will continue to evaluate the industry's growth year-on-year into the future.
Australian Seed Federation chief executive officer Katherine Delbridge said, “The Pasture Metrics Project has given us an excellent snapshot of the industry. By better understanding its size and value we’ve now got a benchmark to monitor future growth.”
The Australian Seed Federation is the national peak body for the whole seed supply chain. Its report, ‘Assessment of the sales volume and value of the Australian pasture seed industry’ found that Australian pasture seed companies supply between 40,000 to 45,000 tonnes of pasture seed every year to livestock industries – dairy, beef, sheep meat and wool. That represents a direct value of over $230 million to seed companies.
Project lead, Mike Gout, an agricultural economist and seed industry expert who led the analysis of the project, said when analysed, there is a further consolidated industry value creation total of $2.98 billion. That’s eight per cent of the $35.3 billion in annual farm gate value from the major livestock industries that can be attributed to pasture seed.
He said the sale of annual pasture seed creates a further $5 billion of downstream value in the processing, logistics and retail sales of meat and milk.
“An interesting trend over the past five-year period is the growth in the use of improved proprietary seed from 61 per cent to 68 per cent. This shows that livestock producers and their advisors are recognising the extra value they can receive from planting newer varieties,” Mr Gout said.
Selecting pasture varieties
Being able to monitor the growth of the Australian pasture seed industry is just one focus of the Australian Seed Federation and its members involved in the Pasture Metrics Project. Another is lifting the profile and raising awareness of the Pasture Trials Network.
“The Pasture Trials Network (PTN) offers independently reviewed and robust, grazing feed-base variety performance information,” said Pasture Trials Network executive officer Tony Butler.
“It’s all about helping livestock producers and their advisors select the best-performing varieties of the most relevant temperate pasture species suited to their region.
“Our data is gathered by a range of independent trials run in temperate areas across Australia. We’ve been running various pasture variety trials for over a decade now, and the data and reports are freely available to anyone looking to make informed pasture choices at sowing.”
For the Australian Seed Federation, the Pasture Trials Network is an important cross-industry collaboration. “Right across the agricultural industry, people are thinking about how to do more for less from both a financially and environmentally sustainable standpoint,” Ms Delbridge said.
“The fact there is now such a rich bank of independent data available from the Pasture Trials Network, means livestock producers can confidently select the best-performing varieties for their farming environment. That’s a win-win.”
Mr Butler said making better decisions about varietal selection can deliver considerable productivity and profitability benefits to producers as their livestock can consume the extra feed delivered by the better performing varieties.
“Since the program’s inception, over 90 trials have now been listed on the MLA ‘PTN’ web tool covering eight major pasture species: annual, Italian and perennial ryegrass, cocksfoot, tall fescue, lucerne and sub-clover. And the dataset is only growing!
“I’d encourage anyone in the market for pasture seed for sowing to check out the PTN website or the MLA PTN web tool before making your next purchasing decision. And for dairy producers, the Forage Value Index will have plenty of useful content.”
For more, visit the the PTN website: pasturetrials.com.au
