He said the school was founded on the principles of long-term sustainability and profitability.
He told Farmer’s Weekly that the LRF Stockman School, held at the Aldam Resort near Winburg in the Free State, could be counted among the top events of its kind in the world.
“Our objective is to equip seedstock producers and the rest of the value chain, including, among others, feedlotters, abattoir representatives and retailers, to realise top returns on the investments in their businesses.
“In order to achieve that, the Stockman School is in many instances the forerunner in terms of the introduction of new technologies and breeding practices in Southern Africa. For instance, our very first event focused on carcass quality, a topic that was relatively low on the agenda at the time,” he said.
Research and development is a major corporate goal of the LRF, and more specifically, to create awareness of forward-thinking production practices.
“The training of beef cattle breeders is very close to the LRF’s heart. The Stockman School is one of the world’s best educational agricultural events and quality is always paramount,” Styger said.
Mind-shifting topics such as the importance of net feed intake (NFI) and how it should be measured were also introduced to the local cattle industry, according to Styger. He said this resulted in a considerable number of testing facilities being established in Southern Africa. (NFI refers to the amount of feed consumed by an animal to produce a unit of output, such as weight gain.)
While the emphasis was placed on female fertility during the 2022 event, profit drivers pertaining to bull selection was on the agenda for the 2023 Stockman School.
The programme included, among others, presentations on traceability and animal health, the future role of livestock in agriculture, dealing with disease outbreaks and suspicious deaths, as well as the state of genomics and its impact on bull selection in Southern Africa.
