Using technology to fast-track organic certification audits

Lyndavale Cattle Co is a fourth-generation family owned and operated business, producing grass fed, certified organic and EU-accredited beef spanning three stations and 3,700km2 in Central Australia.

The Stanes family has a strong ethical approach to managing both the land and livestock, with a focus on sustainable stocking rates across the three properties - Lyndavale Station, Mount Ebenezer Station and De Rose Hill Station – and allowing their Angus Charolais cross herd to be fattened in lengthy periods of low rainfall. In addition to their certified organic properties, they also operate several farms in South Australia. 

Maintaining organic certification requires keeping records and data to meet audit requirements, which Lyndavale Cattle Co Manager, South Australia Operations, Lily Stanes said was historically tedious. “In the past we relied mostly on spreadsheets and diary records to satisfy traceability requirements, which was time consuming to keep updated,” Ms Stanes said. “We have always been good at collecting livestock data, however the move to Black Box, has certainly saved a lot of time when it comes to preparing for organic audits for each property.”

Black Box Co uses individual animal data to provide beef businesses with key insights for use in decision making and to improve record-keeping, which can be easily accessed for compliance purposes.Black Box co-founder and CEO, Shannon Speight, said each animals’ National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) tag is scanned and data collected when stock are held in a crush for routine husbandry treatments. “This is called crush-side data and includes key metrics such as weight, breed and pregnancy status,” Ms Speight said.“There are several systems available in the market that either collect the data, which is exported and uploaded to Black Box for processing, or via an integration that allows for automatic data transfer. This data then surfaces into an easy to use and navigate dashboard that provides beef producers with key insights into the performance of their herd by each individual animal.”

Set up is paying dividends

Having the infrastructure and systems in place to collect the data has taken a few years for the Stanes family, however, Lily said they have been supported all the way by the team at Black Box. “We purchased TruTest indicators, readers and weigh bars for the main trucking yards at each property,” she said. “With the help of the Black Box team, we then developed systems to collect data and input it into Black Box, including weaner induction information, carcase feedback sheets and NLIS transfers.  We have also found Black Box is a great tool to involve employees with as it helps them to understand the bigger picture of what we’re trying to achieve. By capturing all our livestock data on the one platform, we’re all learning a lot about our herd ourselves, and have a better understanding of average daily weight gains, as well as dressing percentages for each animal class.”

Gaining insights into productivity and profitability

A key benefit from using Black Box is it’s not limited to data at the farm-gate. Producers can access information about their stock through the supply chain, allowing them to gain insights into the production system and make better and more informed decisions. For certified organic cattle, this means producers can access carcase data on individual animals from processors – data that had not previously been used by the Stanes family. “For two-and-a-half years, we have been inducting all our weaner stock into Black Box, and are now starting to see carcase results, which is very exciting,” Ms Stanes said. “While we are a few years away yet, I’m looking forward to the time when our entire herd has been inducted and is active on Black Box.  This will allow us to easily track cattle numbers across properties and provide a tool to assist with forecasting income for budgeting purposes.”

Using the filter tool within Black Box has been a game-changer for Lyndavale Cattle Co, increasing the business’ income because more informed decisions can now be made when booking in cattle.“We can now easily filter between abattoirs, properties, and sex to give us a better understanding of the prices received for each type and class of animal for different abattoirs,” Ms Stanes said.  “Traditionally, this information is not often marketed well by abattoirs, and it can be difficult to decipher complicated price grids.”Ms Stanes said the Lyndavale teams were using Black Box to guide decisions regarding sales. “Specifically, this year we used the predictor table to ascertain how many steers would be finished this year so that we could book space in abattoirs. We weighed a sample size, as our older animals are not yet inducted into Blackbox, then viewed these animals on the Growing Management Dashboard.  We were able to use the predictor table to view the number of head that will likely be more than our ideal turnoff weight by the end of the year and convert this to a percentage of the sample size. This was then extrapolated over all the steers in the same age category, based on an average daily weight gain. Black Box has definitely given us the potential to increase profitability in our business as it’s improving our ability to collect, collate and interpret data.”

The future looks bright with Black Box

Having the records and data readily available for organic certification remains a key motivator for Lyndavale, and Ms Stanes said Black Box was now used to assist with compliance for organic and European Union Cattle Accreditation Scheme (EUCAS) certifications, particularly relating to animal traceability requirements.  “I now only need to log into Black Box during an audit and all the records are there, readily available for the auditor to view,” she said. “The ability to search for individual animals and view their lifetime data has made compliance with traceability requirements very easy, and I’m able to demonstrate an animal’s history, from weaning induction data and treatment records all the way through to carcase results.The auditor was very impressed with our ability to trace back an animal’s lifetime history and even asked if he could recommend Black Box to other producers he’s audited.”

As a requirement of the EUCAS accreditation, producers are required to provide a PIC reconciliation, or an annual stocktake of all electronic NLIS devices on a property. “Once our entire herd is active on the system, I’m confident we’ll be able to use Black Box in the future for all our EUCAS audits as well,” Ms Stanes said.“This will make annual PIC reconciliations simple, as we’ll be able to view active tags on each PIC at any given time.”