Livestock Data Link (LDL)

Three cost benefit analysis projects have been undertaken to assess the effectiveness of LDL.  

One of the projects assessed the capacity of the LDL program to provide commercial benefits to the Australian beef and sheep livestock industries. This project encompassed six core components, aimed at assessing the benefits that LDL could potentially deliver to the Australian red meat livestock industries, and to the red meat processing sector. This analysis was used to support the assessment of a business case for further investment into the development and roll-out of the LDL program.  

Another project independently reviewed the LDL program and undertook a cost/benefit analysis on the development of the program. The LDL cost benefit analysis included the following: 

• Developed a costing model that captures the value benefit for each of the various sectors of the industry 

• Accessed data available from existing industry studies, conduct higher level liaison with the two processors involved in the pilot project, liaise with UNE and MLA to obtain other pertinent data that will be required to populate the model 
• Provided a cost/benefit, based on the available data that quantifies the benefits of LDL feedback information to each section of the supply chain 
• A final return on investment should be calculated for the LDL system and where possible, quantify the impact the system will have on relevant MLA Programs.

The third project assisted industry and individual plants piloting LDL to assess the technical, operational, and commercial costs and benefits of LDL. This project included the beef and sheepmeat industries, and the processor, feedlot and producer sectors of the supply chain. It encompassed five core components, aimed at collecting and analysing the operational experience of the LDL pilots, complemented by targeted additional research and analysis. 

The following reports are available:

• Cost benefit modelling of the LDL program. 
• The benefits of LDL for the processing sector.
• LDL industry analysis.

Producers can use LDL to understand why their consignment did or did not comply with market requirements, including carcase compliance and animal health issues.

Processors have customised grids based on individual market requiremens, so producers can easily see if a carcase was downgraded (i.e. discounted) and the reason why. Producers can access solutions to address non-compliance issues to help them decide what changes to make to increase compliance, and ultimately their returns.

Producers can also compare their own carcase performance figures to industry benchmarks within their region, state or the whole country, to identify further areas of improvement.

Red meat supply chains currently providing feedback to producers through LDL include: 

• Wingham Beef Exports
• Oakey Beef Exports
• JBS Southern
• The Casino Food Co-op (formerly NCMC).

At this stage, LDL can only provide carcase feedback directly to producers from abattoirs, not when producers sell livestock to third parties for finishing, such as feedlots.

Log in directly to LDL or through myMLA.

There are four modules in LDL and ISC has produced a fact sheet on each one. These are:

• Carcase compliance
• Animal disease and defect
• Breeder information (beef)
• Lean meat yield

The Australian red meat industry produces and collects a wide range of data at various points along the livestock supply chain. The LDL program provides a solution to enable greater utilisation of this information by presenting feedback in a user-friendly format that can aid in decision-making throughout the supply chain. Accessing this information improves the bottom line for producers and red meat processors.

Animal diseases and defects affect meat, offal and sometimes the carcase, causing these products to be condemned. MLA research indicates meat and offal condemns cost the beef processing sector up to $50m per year. Similarly, research into small stock shows that $110 million is lost annually through 10 common conditions found during processing. It is also estimated that on-farm sectors bears 86% of the cost.

LDL includes data from the National Sheep Health Monitoring Project (NSHMP) and Enhanced Abattoir Surveillance (EAS) Program, which allows sheep producers consigning to participating abattoirs to access their inspection results against 19 disease and defect conditions. Some beef producers can also access disease and defect feedback from data uploaded to LDL by participating companies. In the future, sheep producers will be able to access individual disease and defect data as a couple of plants are working towards this.   

Research by Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) indicates non-compliance with market specifications costs up to $163 million per year across the beef industry. This includes value lost due to: 

• downgrades (discounts) for out of specification carcases ($51 million per year)
• carcase condemns ($64 million per year)
• loss of meat and offal value due to animal health and disease ($12m–$49m per year).

LDL helps producers increase carcase compliance through analytics and reporting, thereby improving the bottom line for both themselves and red meat processors.

Additional benefits include:

• Enhanced flow of information about carcase performance and animal health post-slaughter to improve value chain efficiency and performance.
• A centralised information depository enables performance benchmarking at an enterprise, regional, state or national level.
• Tailored research, development and extension activities for supply chains and geographic areas facing particular carcase performance or animal disease and defect issues.