- Published:
- Friday 5 February 2016
The winner of the Royal Agricultural Society of Victoria’s (RASV) Heifer Challenge, recognising female beef breeding cattle, was announced last night at the Beef Week Celebratory Dinner in Bendigo.
Member for Macedon Mary-Anne Thomas presented the awards for Champion – going to Boonaroo Angus, hailing from Casterton and Reserve Champion, Eloora Shorthorns, Cavendish.
The RASV Beef Week Heifer Challenge highlights the quality of Victorian beef production and recognises beef stud operations that are producing high quality replacement females, giving producers valuable feedback on the quality and consistency of their breeding stock.
Heifer Challenge judge Bob Dent visited close to 50 nominated studs between 27 January and 4 February as part of Stock and Land Beef Week - assessing pens of ten heifers born in 2014 and choosing the winners of prizes worth more than $4500.
The Heifer Challenge is part of Stock and Land’s ‘Beef Week’, helping producers Victoria wide learn from breeding operations as well as introducing new practices to their own production systems.
With its increased focus on commercially relevant competitions like the Heifer Challenge, RASV is providing further opportunities to collaborate with industry and the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources to deliver benefits to Victorian producers.
Victorian beef producers have faced challenges this year with dry conditions affecting much of the state, but their high-quality pasture-fed product is still in high demand worldwide, with $1.5 billion-worth of beef exported from the state last financial year.
Victoria's major export markets for beef are Japan, the Republic of Korea and the United States of America. With the Australia-Korea Free Trade Agreement and China-Australia Free Trade Agreement recently coming into effect, it’s expected beef exports will increase over the next decade.
Quotes attributable to Member for Macedon Mary-Anne Thomas
"The RASV Beef Week Heifer Challenge is a fantastic opportunity to shine a spotlight on the high quality of Victorian beef production and recognises those studs achieving excellence in their breeding operations."