![Angus Australia CEO Scott Wright with a mob of Angus cattle. Picture by Scott Wright Angus Australia CEO Scott Wright with a mob of Angus cattle. Picture by Scott Wright](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/217645017/f1e188b8-e533-4a79-9b53-05ce684102a6_rotated_180.jpg/r0_376_4032_2983_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Black cattle are not necessarily the first choice for a lot of North Queensland producers, but Angus Australia is hoping to change that view by promoting the breed's ability to increase herd profitability.
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Angus Australia CEO Scott Wright said the organisation's northern development project had been going for at least five years, but there had been various iterations in the past.
"It's essentially about helping northern cattle producers, predominately in Queensland but also in Central Australia and Western Australia, to use Angus genetics to lift the profitability of their herd," he said.
"So we see ourselves having a role in that place and there's been a lot of bulls sold into those areas particularly Queensland."
Mr Wright said there had been a lot of interest from Queensland cattle producers, particularly in the last couple of years.
"They obviously see some market advantages - market premium advantages - by having Angus in their product mix," he said.
"Selling to market, there's an Angus premium which is substantial, but there's also significant advantages in terms of carcase quality and fertility for those herds.
"We think it's a good mix going forward that we can add some value to their operations and certainly there's a lot of interest in Angus cattle in the north."
Mr Wright said the comment about Angus not doing well in the heat was an interesting one and one that was heard regularly.
"What I would say is that there's a lot of variation within our breed and going forward we're doing an increasing amount of research into heat resilience," he said.
"There's a lot of Angus bulls being used in the north and we do have protocols for those bulls. For example, if a producer was to take an Angus bull into the north, we've got information available on how would they acclimatise those bulls and use them effectively in largely Bos Indicus herds.
"Certainly, we're a southern temperate breed, the breed evolved in Britain, and it's adapted to Australian conditions, but we've got a wide variety of genetics."
Mr Wright believes Angus genes can play a part in the puzzle of increasing profitability in the North.
"So it might be that a producer has a predominately Brahman herd, but they will use Angus genetics. They may use an Angus bull as a terminal sire that gives them better carcase quality or they might retain those females to increase fertility so it doesn't necessarily mean that we promote producers using 100 per cent Angus genetics in the north, but rather there can be a combination of what's suitable for a particular environment," he said.
"Other producers might use Angus in a cross breeding program and there are some good examples of that.
"There's a whole variety of ways that people are using Angus genetics in the north."
Mr Wright said it was hard to quantify how much of increase there had been in the use of Angus genetics in the North.
"But we do have a program at the moment where we are surveying producers in every state, particularly the north," he said.
"The last study we did was in 2019 - we're just collecting that data at the moment and we will be publishing that data later this year. That should give us a good indication of the composition of the Queensland cattle herd in terms of what Angus component there is.
"The indications to me from conversations from our seed stock members is that they are increasingly selling a lot of Angus genetics into all areas of Queensland.
"Across the nation, (according to) the last survey we did, 49 per cent of females across the country were Angus influenced, increasing to a higher percentage in the south and decreasing in the north."
Angus Australia has taken out a larger sponsorship at Beef Australia in Rockhampton next year than it has in previous years.
"We have a growing presence in that part of the world so it makes sense to us to be at Beef (Australia) and meet as many people as possible," Mr Wright said.