Better Beef Cattle for Asia
Southeast Asia needs better beef cattle to improve the quantity and quality of meat for its growing population. Timothy Olson, UF/IFAS faculty in animal sciences, will be involved in training the Ph.D. candidates who will conduct the research needed to improve Asia’s beef cattle.
Olson has partnered with the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NULS) in Oslo, Norway and agricultural universities in three Southeast Asian nations, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Olson began work on this program by touring all three countries in October 2007, conducting a survey of cattle types, forages, and feeding practices.
Olson was brought into the program by Dr. Jan Berg of the NULS Department of Animal and Aquacultural Sciences. Berg tapped Olson to serve as an external member of the graduate committees of five Ph.D. students, representing all three countries.
Olson met with officials of the National Institute of Animal Husbandry (NIAH) in Hanoi and the Hanoi Agricultural University (HAU), as well as rural villages to see local cattle types and feeding procedures. On the way to these villages, he and his colleagues often saw beef cattle tethered in the fields to glean what they could after the rice, corn or vegetables were harvested. The cattle that Olson observed were of moderate size and generally in excellent body condition.
Olson also visited Vietnam's Hue Agricultural University and was very impressed with the equipment for analysis of feedstuffs and the level of expertise of the young faculty.
At the Royal Agricultural University of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, Olson had the opportunity to visit a research farm outside the city. The Cambodian beef cattle he saw throughout the country ranged widely in type, size, and age, but none were adequately fattened. Simply improving nutrition, an achievable goal in Cambodia, could improve both the quantity and quality of meat.
Another practice that affects the quality of beef in Cambodia is an economic practice by the cattle buyers who supply city markets with beef. These “middlemen” who purchase cattle from the small holders and take them to the city meat markets offer severely lower prices for steers as opposed to bulls, regardless of the weight of the animal. Steers can have an increased rate of fattening compared with bulls, so this economic practice can affect meat quality.
Cattle are extremely valuable in Laos, where families own parts of mountains, where they graze their cattle herds. Yellow Zebu cattle were the most common. Fighting bulls are particularly valuable in Laos, where cattle in general have great value. Laotian bulls fight other bulls, not humans. The first animal to give ground and run from the other bull loses. Such bulls are kept confined to small pens in villages where they are fed harvested green grasses and a concentrate supplement. They are maintained in excellent body condition and are used as valuable stud animals.Olson also met with the Ph.D. candidate from Laos while there.
Contact: Timothy Olson
Timothy Olson, far left, meets with new colleagues at Hue Agricultural University in Vietnam, during a visit that was part of a 3-country survey of beef cattle.
Cambodian cattle, while ranging widely in size, were almost uniformly inadequately fattened. Note the condition of the standing animal, in particular, as an example. Because the Cambodian cattle were, in general, much thinner than those observed in Vietnam, they are likely to have much lower fertility than Vietnam's La Sind cattle breed.
Olson observed these Laotian mountain cattle and noted that some of the yellow beef cattle in Cambodia and Laos were very small, perhaps under 400 pounds at maturity! Such cattle were reported to exist in areas of the highlands of Vietnam, as well, where nutrition is lacking. The lower nutritional requirements of these smaller yellow cattle make them more appropriate in such mountainous, low-nutrition regions.
