Reducing feral camel impacts across remote Australia:

Australian Feral Camel Management Project

21st November 2013, Parliament House Theatre, Canberra

Session Two: Governance and Delivery Speakers: Billy Landy, Mark Jeffries and Peter See Byron Brooks, Ethan Hansen, Troy Hansen and Peter Twigg Mike Eathorne, Meramist Pty Ltd Andy Bubb, Ninti One John Virtue, Biosecurity SA Bidda Jones, RSPCA

Commercial Use Industry Engagement. Mike Eathorne

Commercial Use of Feral Camels • Introduction • Livestock Procurement • Transport • Processing • Market Options • Added Value • Summary

Introduction • 2 Export plants in Australia process Camel meat for

Export.

• Samex in Peterborough South Australia. • Meramist in Caboolture Queensland

• Both plants have capacity to process approx. 120

camels per day.

• Estimated Combined annual capacity available 50,000 PA

• Both plants are operating well under capacity.

• 2012-13 combined commercial use was less than 20,000.

• 2013-14 first 4 months has seen very few camels processed.

• The aerial cull has removed the majority of camels

from traditional mustering areas .

Livestock Procurement. • Lack of a developed supply chain means we can only

produce week to week on a wild caught basis adding greatly to our costs.

• Meramist do not muster the camels on a direct basis. We purchase from the Pastoralist and Aboriginal Communities. We do have mustering teams available to contract muster for us.

• Samex have contracted a Mustering team operating predominately in Aboriginal Lands,

• For the Export of Camel meat to expand it is critical that we engage pastoralists to farm camels. To achieve a complete wipe out of camels is unrealistic and harnessing a benefit should be considered.

• Co-grazing with cattle is quite compatible, they do not compete for food source, Camel high grazer, cattle low.

• Development of a series of holding yards would allow collection of smaller groups of camels to road train quantities as well as generate a local cash flow for both indigenous land holders and pastoralists.

• While not economical to employ aerial shooters for smaller numbers, it can be worthwhile for the Commercial use Camel meat industry .

• A stable supply of camels means regular employment all the way down the supply chain.

Transport • The biggest cost for Commercial use operators is

Transport.

• The majority of camels are sourced from South of Alice Springs.

• A road train consisting of 3 x 45ft trailers can carry 54 mature camels.

• Building of supply chains is the Camel Industry’s biggest challenge.

Processing

• Slaughter of camels is more expensive than processing beef cattle.

• This is simply the design of Export Abattoirs for beef cattle and more work is required to process camels.

• Average weight of a Dressed Camel mature camel is 250Kg. This is 50% of the live weight.

• From the 250Kg average dressed weight the yield on a Boneless animal 62% so 150Kg is packed for sale, simular to grass fed beef cattle.

Market Options • There is no problem selling camel meat as long as it

retains its relativity to beef. Demand is greater than available supply.

• Ethnic migration around the world has generated

demand from countries where high health standards and inspection compliance has meant a great marketing opportunity for Australia because of our disease free status and veterinary protocols in place with first world countries.

• There are a number of established markets that we simply cannot supply the full demand.

• USA Annual demand is for in excess of 300 tons, We

are only supply 50% of this demand.

• Canada Annual demand is in excess of 150 tons, of this we are supplying less than 20%.

• Europe Annual demand is approx. 100 tons, we are

supply approx. 50% of this. • Japan, Asia and China there is a lot of interest, but we cannot offer

• Camel meat has been part of the staple diet in Middle East countries for more than 2,000 years and does not require a huge marketing effort. There are weekly enquiry's from this market, It is more difficult as it is very price sensitive due local production , but the world is demanding higher food safety standards and Australia stands in a good position to capitalise on this this. • the media attention on Australia culling camels has given this and a number of other markets incorrect ideas on the value of camel meat.

• World wide publicity of Aerial culls of camels on a “Shoot to waste” policy has not helped our marketing efforts and many potential customers believe they should be able to purchase the camel meat for a fraction of the true value. • We cannot develop new markets until we have established supply chains to meet demand on established markets.

Added Value • There is still a lot of work to add value to the offal's,

hides and by products. Again this is very difficult with a consistent supply to the market.

• Hide’s have started to develop value chain markets. • Blood, trials have been carried out on value of red

cells when blood has been separated.

Summary • Demand is greater than supply.

• The 2 Abattoirs have invested millions of dollar in

upgrading plants to enable processing of camels.

• Have invested time and money to develop and grow market opportunities.

• Management of large feral animals in the Australian

Out back will be an ongoing problem.

• Assistance to Commercialize these animals will reduce the cost to tax payers as well as generating export incomes and provide employment all the way down the supply chain.

• An example of this is Peterborough which is a town of high unemployment and the local export abattoirs is the biggest employer in town generating about $ 5 million dollars in wages and on costs for the local economy.

• Employment in Central Australia where private enterprise jobs are scarce and can assist with social problems caused by lack of gainful activities.

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