Published date: 28 November 2023

Awarded contract - This means that the contract has been awarded to a supplier.


Closing: 20 November 2023, 12pm

Contract summary

Industry

  • Research and development consultancy services - 73200000

Location of contract

Any region

Value of contract

£10,128.58

Procurement reference

CF-0192800D8d000003VQwdEAG

Published date

28 November 2023

Closing date

20 November 2023

Closing time

12pm

Contract start date

11 December 2023

Contract end date

5 February 2024

Contract type

Service contract

Procedure type

Call-off from a framework agreement

A mini-competition or direct purchase from a pre-established framework agreement.

Contract is suitable for SMEs?

No

Contract is suitable for VCSEs?

No

Description

At present we source about 50% of our Beef from dairy beef cross animals, and 50% from specialist
suckler beef breeds. Precise statistics are not available, but information can be inferred from the
Cattle Tracing System data. The Emissions Intensity of suckler beef is on average 70% higher than
that of beef from the dairy herd due to longer maturation times and lower energy diets. Suckler Beef
also requires around 2 to 6 times the land to produce than dairy beef, depending on the intensity of
the finishing system. Efforts to increase the proportion of beef supplied from the dairy sector could
therefore provide significant GHG reductions and alleviate land constraints for habitat creation, or
greenhouse gas removal technologies such as afforestation.
Two scenarios present themselves:
1. Replacing specialist dairy breeds such as Holstein with a dual-purpose breed like Norwegian
Red that produce less milk and more beef. Although emissions from milk production would go
up slightly, this would be more than offset by the reduced overheads of maintaining two herds
2. Improving the quality of dairy/beef cross animals through improved beef sire quality could
improve beef yields e.g., switching from Angus/Hereford to Charolais, or potentially double
muscled varieties such as Belgian Blue.

This project was awarded by Defra.

Award information

Awarded date

22 November 2023

Contract start date

11 December 2023

Contract end date

5 February 2024

Total value of contract

£10,128.58

This contract was awarded to 1 supplier.

Harper Adams University

Address

Edgmond TF10 8NB

Reference

None

About the buyer

Contact name

Defra Group Commercial

Address

17 Smith Square
London
SW1P 3JR
UK

Email

dgc.rdeframework@defra.gov.uk