Management of Beef Cattle Production in Malaysia: A Step Forward to Sustainability

Abstract

The beef cattle industry recorded progressive growth in the last two decades. Despite this growth, suppliers are having difficulty to meet the domestic demand for beef. Continued strong growth of beef cattle production capacity depends on supplier profitability, which in turn will be influenced by primarily on availability of feedstuffs that constitutes a large proportion of the cost of production. The policy design and management of beef cattle production systems in Malaysia is challenging since imported beef is much more profitable. To this end, the research has applied systems approach that can be used to study and understand the behavior of a complex system over time which is characterized by interdependence, mutual interaction, information feedback and circular causality. The results indicate that low beef price and feed cost ratio would worsen beef cattle production. However, development of grazing and fodder area and genetic improvement boost the beef cattle production significantly by 2020. The results of this research support the idea that the best policies to obtain the targeted self-sufficiency level is through importation of animal for breeding, minimized rate of beef cattle mortality, increased fertility and the conduct of training in feed efficiency management.