Beef Quality Audit Shows Continued Improvement in Management Practices

The 2016 National Beef Quality Audit results have been released at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisc. and hold positive results.

According to the report, the cattle industry has continued to make progress in reducing defects that negatively impact beef quality, such as lameness which improved significantly. Also, body condition has improved from 22 percent cattle being identified in 2007 to just 9.3 percent in 2016.

One area of improvement from the results are efforts to communicate the benefits of beef to the general public.

For 25 years, the beef checkoff-funded National Beef Quality Audit has delivered a set of guidelines and measurements to help cattle producers determine quality conformance of the U.S. beef supply. Today, dairy cows represent 20 percent of the U.S. beef supply, a sharp increase from 5.5 percent in 2011.

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