High awareness of integrity importance

Results from ISC’s latest national producer survey show livestock producers are very aware of the market factors driving overseas demand for Australian red meat – quality, trust and safe production – and the importance of the integrity system programs.

It’s one of the many insights from this year’s national producer survey, conducted both online and via computer assisted telephone interview (CATI) and involving more than 1,500 producers who were selected at random from the Livestock Production Assurance (LPA) database.

ISC has conducted the national producer survey regularly since 2015, capturing information on awareness, understanding, perception and adoption of the red meat integrity programs. 

Survey results indicate producers have a widespread awareness and understanding of the LPA program, LPA National Vendor Declarations (LPA NVDs) and the National Livestock Identification System (NLIS), but there may be an opportunity to ensure this is the case for all hobby farmers.

LPA results

Most LPA accredited producers surveyed perceived the program provides value through demonstrating quality assurance to customers (85%) and supporting animal welfare and biosecurity (82%).

Additionally, more than half believed it added value to business through supporting food safety (69%) and/or market access (65%).

Understanding LPA requirements and confidence meeting them is widespread and higher than results from the 2019 survey.

NVD results

Almost all producers surveyed are aware of and use LPA National Vendor Declarations (NVDs) and more than 9 in 10 understand the information required to complete the declaration correctly.

In total, farms using NVDs are responsible for more than 99% of all livestock of producers surveyed.

As expected, selling livestock is the most common reason for using LPA NVDs. However, among the producers surveyed online, a higher proportion use NVDs to track stock through the value chain and guarantee that stock are produced safely and sustainably than in 2019.

Use of eNVDs (in both surveys) is significantly more widespread among producers aged under 45 years of age. eNVD use varied between 39% for online survey respondents and 32% of CATI respondents.

NLIS results

Almost all producers are aware of the NLIS and its requirements are well understood, with the majority of producers using the system believing it is easy to use.

Results suggest some growth in the proportion of producers who were surveyed online saying NLIS has quite a lot to very significant value for on-farm management.

While most producers find the NLIS database easy to use, there is an opportunity to continue encouraging producers to use the database for on-farm and herd management, to reconcile PICs and check the health status of purchased livestock.

LDL results

One in ten producers are aware of the Livestock Data Link (LDL) program, but awareness is significantly more widespread among producers with greater than 5,400 head of livestock than those with fewer than 200. To help boost awareness of the LDL program a new video has been released.  The video demonstrates how cattle breeders can use LDL to view carcase information on animals bred but not directly consigned to the processor. 

Customer experience and help services

Approximately half of all producers surveyed have contacted the Integrity Systems Help Desk and the vast majority of this group were satisfied with how agents handled their enquiry and felt their issue was easy to resolve.