Common sense and willingness to compromise would help meat industry

All the predictions of imminent doom for the red meat sector suggest it is a basket case with little hope of redemption. Dairy gets all the favourable headlines and this is fully deserved in the light of its performance since the early years of this century. But it ignores the meat industry’s $8 billion contribution to exports and the substantial farm profitability improvement over the same period, especially taking Beef + Lamb’s improved prediction for this season.

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Possible meat industry solution proposed nearly 30 years ago

In 1985 the Meat Industry Council commissioned a report from consultancy firm, Pappas Carter Evans & Koop, entitled Cost Competitiveness in Export Meat Processing which proposed a solution to the problems of the industry. Unfortunately, in view of the history of the industry since then, the recommendations were never implemented.