The National Saleyard Quality Assurance program – NSQA – was developed in 1996-97 to provide the saleyard sector of the livestock industry with a quality assurance program linking the sectors of industry from the ‘paddock to the plate’.
Quality assurance programmes like Cattlecare and Flockcare had been developed. The processing sector had been forced to move to in-plant quality assurance programmes and thus if saleyards were to maintain their place in the industry, they needed to act as well.
After extensive industry consultation, the NSQA National Standard was endorsed.
There are near 100 participating saleyards across all States and the Northern Territory with some 48 attaining full Accreditation under the program. The recent adoption of a Certificate Two level of accreditation opens the program to even more saleyards to achieve Accreditation.
NSQA is third-part audited with AUSMEAT contracted to conduct appropriate audits.