New cattle breeds : how do we use them?

Traditionally, beef production in Australia has been based on a few of the many breeds that developed in the United Kingdom. Pedigree breeding was used to maintain these breeds and was probably a sound policy, when combined with selection on performance, to maintain and concentrate merit in stud herds. Emphasis on pure breeding has caused many prejudices against the practices of mixing and selection which were the original bases of breed formation. Despite the adaptation of British breeds to the various environments in Australia there was, and still is, continuous interest in introducing other breeds of cattle to improve beef production. The problems in adaptation of British breeds to northern tropical parts of Australia forced an investigation of breeds of cattle from tropical Asia, Africa, the United States and more recently, western Europe