Are you interested in working in a diverse industry where you will be working with cows everyday and involved in the production of high quality beef? Working in agriculture could give you the opportunity to work in the beef industry.

Britain has more than one million suckler cows producing calves for beef. Some breeds of cattle are known as 'dual purpose' because they are suitable for producing milk and beef. But modern farming divides cattle into either beef or dairy breeds aiming at high productivity through specialisation. British beef breeds include Hereford, Galloway, Beef Shorthorn, Aberdeen Angus and South Devon. A recent trend in the UK has been the introduction of large Continental breeds such as Charolais, Limousin and Simmental.

The dairy industry needs cows to calve once a year in order to maintain milk production; each cow produces an average of four offspring in her life, thus creating a surplus of calves. In theory only one of these calves is needed to replace the cow when her milk yields start to decrease. This means the remaining three calves are available for meat production.

Dairy farmers plan in advance which calves will be reared for beef and cross the selected cows with a beef sire, i.e. a bull from a beef herd. Cattle breeding for beef production is concentrated mainly in the upland areas, with the young animals moved to lowland areas for fattening before sale. These cows are usually crosses of a number of breeds and chosen to meet the farming conditions. Many cows are mated using artificial insemination (AI). This allows farmers to choose the best animals to breed.

In 2000 there were 2.3 million breeding dairy cows and 1.8 million beef cows. There are several methods of rearing beef. Some animals are housed all the year round while others are housed only in the winter when the grass has stopped growing.

Beef animals are slaughtered in a modern abattoir where the conditions are strictly supervised and every effort is made to ensure that the operation is humane. In 2001, beef accounted for 22% of the meat eaten in the UK.

There are many ways to enter a career in the beef industry. If you have no formal qualifications but can demonstrate your enthusiasm for working with cattle, there are opportunities for you.

The following websites have more information on the beef industry:

Farming and Countryside Education (FACE) - www.face-online.org.uk

National Farmers Union (NFU) - www.nfu.org.uk

National Beef Association - www.nationalbeefassociation.com