"The industry is out there trying to breed you beaut bulls to produce cattle which marble-score and hang up well, but to date we are not getting a premium for better quality."

Greg appreciates a 20c/kg market premium for Angus cattle over other breeds, because it has remained at the fore of genetic and marketing progress.

He believes premiums are getting closer for others with the success of the Meat Standards Australia grading on eating-quality standards, which MSA has been accredited for since its early days.

But with this industry change, Greg says producers will need to know what they are producing and ensure they hit the targets consistently.

"Producers need to remember that ultimately it is about giving consumers what they want, but our immediate customers are the abattoirs, so if you are not breeding something the abattoirs want, the consumer will not want it either."

Greg and his wife Dinah and their three adult children run a self-replacing spring-calving herd of 4000 Angus breeders across three properties in western Victoria in about 650-millimetre rainfall country, trading as Bushy Park Angus.

Greg, Dinah and their daughter Jodie are based at Caupaul, Dergholm, son Scott and his partner Penny run Kalabity near Casterton, and another son Tim and his partner Melissa run Bushy Park at Birringara, used solely for backgrounding steers.

To maximise their breeding female numbers, the Farquharsons target the feeder market, aiming to turn-off surplus-to-replacement heifers at 400 kilograms to 450kg.

As they reach these marketable weights at 18 to 20 months of age, they are sold to a number of feedlots.

"We are better-off letting someone else finish them and turning-off large lines of even steers to the feedlot industry," he said.

The Farquharsons have a strong emphasis on using the best genetics, and for the past 25 years they have undertaken an annual artificial insemination program of 500 females to produce about 100 new bulls each year for use in their herd.