Proposed Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines for Cattle

Appendix 2 – Estimates of Quantifiable costs of the proposed standards – Option B

The purpose of this Appendix is to establish the quantifiable costs and benefits of the proposed Australian Animal Welfare Standards and Guidelines - Cattle (‘the proposed standards’). This includes only those proposed standards with estimated costs that are incremental to the base case. That is, proposed standards with costs assessed to be not greater than the base case are not estimated here.

A2.1 Standard 3.2 – Unquantifiable incremental cost of inspecting cattle

Under proposed Standard 3.2, a person in charge must ensure the inspection of cattle at intervals and at a level appropriate to the production system and risk to the welfare of cattle. Possible risks to cattle welfare include and are not limited to: fire; lack of water; lack of supplements (e.g. calcium or minerals); disease; and injury. The incremental cost remains unquantifiable due to unknown variables in relation to – cattle breeds; regions; production systems; risks to welfare; and levels of existing inspections under the base case. Moreover proposed Standard 3.2 would result in incremental unquantifiable benefits to cattle welfare, commensurate with costs.

A2.2 Standard 5.4 – Effective control of dogs

Dogs are an efficient part of the mustering team. Loss of the ability to use dogs acceptably will result in less effective mustering, the need to use more stock people and increased costs to industry and increased stress to cattle. The acceptable use of dogs for handling and mustering of young cattle is an important issue for the cattle industry in the context of cattle training. Early training programs greatly facilitate the later handling of adult cattle and result in less stress to stockpersons and cattle. The proposed standard permits the ongoing responsible use of dogs with cattle.

According to proposed Standard 5.4, a person in charge must have a dog under effective control at all times during handling of cattle. The number of dogs assumed is 1 per establishment (on average) involved in beef cattle farming¹⁷⁰. The number of beef cattle farms per state and territory is summarised in Table A.1 and is estimated to be around 74,447 across Australia.
Table A2.1 – Estimated number of dairy and beef cattle farms by state and territory - 2010-11

Jurisdiction	Dairy cattle farms* (i)	Beef cattle farms** (j)	Total cattle farms (k)=(i)+(j)
NSW	807	27,166	27,973
VIC	4,588	16,020	20,608
QLD	595	19,226	19,821
SA	286	4,629	4,915
WA	170	4,528	4,698
TAS	437	2,603	3,040
NT	0	254	254
ACT	0	51	51
AUSTRALIA	6,883	74,477	81,360

*Source: Dairy Australia, Australian Dairy Industry in Focus 2011

**Source: ABS (2011) – Agricultural Commodities by State & Territory - Cat. No. 7121.0 2010-11
Furthermore, it is assumed for the purpose of estimation that the proportion of dogs not under effective control is currently at 1% or 745 dogs. Moreover, it is assumed that the turnover in the industry would be constant and that every year approximately 745 dogs would need training. Dog-training costs are taken as being around $370¹⁷¹ per dog. As shown in Table A2.2, the 10-year cost of training under proposed Standard 5.4 is estimated to be approximately $2.76m or $1.8m in 2012-13 present value¹⁷² dollars.
Public consultation question 14: Do you know the number or percentage of dogs requiring training or any information under proposed standard S5.4 to improve the estimation of costs?
This analysis does not consider the cost savings arising from having well trained dogs in the form of:

• 
  reduced loss of production from injured stock; and
  
• 
  human labour savings.
  

However, these aforementioned cost savings would be driven by market forces rather than Standard 5.4. That is to say, market forces would mean that farmers would not wish cattle to be bitten as this would undermine their sales and any potential to improve productivity in farm labour by having well trained dogs would be pursued. On the other hand, the objective of Standard 5.4 is more broadly about the welfare of beef cattle in relation to predator anxiety, stress and pain from bites.

Table A2.2 –10-year incremental cost of training for beef cattle dogs under Standard 5.4 –2012-13 dollars

Jurisdiction	No. Beef cattle farm dogs (j)	Dogs not under effective control (l) = (j)*1%	Training cost per dog (m)	Annual cost (o)= (l)*(m)	10-year cost (o)’= (o)*10
NSW	27,166	272	$370	$100,514	$1,005,142
VIC	16,020	160	$370	$59,274	$592,740
QLD	19,226	192	$370	$71,136	$711,362
SA	4,629	46	$370	$17,127	$171,273
WA	4,528	45	$370	$16,754	$167,536
TAS	2,603	26	$370	$9,631	$96,311
NT	254	3	$370	$940	$9,398
ACT	51	1	$370	$189	$1,887
AUSTRALIA	74,477	745	$370	$275,565	$2,755,649
Present value 7% discount rate					$1,808,834
3% discount rate					$2,282,160
10% discount rate					$1,539,297