Summary

The approach for this analysis was to undertake a comprehensive review of the literature on beef production technologies and beef system outcomes, including supply-chain issues such as transport and logistics, and then to ‘socialise’ the findings of that review and gain the perspectives of different stakeholders and industry representatives.

Based on these inputs, a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis was undertaken from which recommendations were developed and refined via further stakeholder engagement.

The report is structured in two parts. Part A describes the Northern Australia beef industry, provides a SWOT analysis and presents recommendations. The recommendations meet the requirement to ‘…inform the Cooperative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia (CRCNA) on strategic research investments, assist with coordination of investment across the northern Australia beef sector and improve strategic alignment across the research, policy and service delivery arms of the sector’.

Part B of the report comprises detailed reviews of the different aspects of the Northern Australia beef industry. The report is structured to follow the Northern Australia beef supply chain, reviewing relevant literature and reports in each section. The last section quantitatively estimates and compares the industry-level benefit for different investments or portfolios of investments.