The potential economic returns to the Australian beef industry from a new twinning technology

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Abstract

Technical procedures to increase the proportion of twin calves in Australian beef herds are being developed for commercial release in the near future. The potential economic benefits to the Australian beef industry from such a technology are of interest to both the commercial development firms and the beef industry. The latter's interest has been whether to fund further research and development programmes to facilitate the uptake of the technology at the farm level. Farm-level budgeting and market simulation model approaches were used to assess the potential economic returns to beef producers and the Australian beef industry from the twinning technology. If such a technology impacted on the Australian beef industry by increasing aggregate calving rate by 0·25% and reducing average weaning weight by 0·7% the net present value of industry net benefits was estimated to be $62 million (in 1988 dollars). However, deferment of uptake of the technology reduced the potential benefits substantially.

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