Agmates

From the Kondinin Group.

The latest research by the Kondinin farming group has found that by viewing livestock selling as a marketing decision producers stand to boost returns, reduce selling costs and improve animal welfare.

Kondinin Group’s latest research from their web site looks at the variety of selling options available to farmers including on-farm, on-line, over-the-hooks and through the saleyards and the pros and cons of each.

Results from the Group’s 2007 National Agricultural Survey revealed the majority of respondents sold 50 per cent of their sheep and 58% of their cattle trough the saleyards despite it being one of the most costly methods.

The research found during 2007 1.2 million sheep Australian sheep and 149,000 cattle sold were on-line through computer-based auctions. That number is forecast to increase as producers uncover the cost cutting opportunities of on-line selling.

Report author, Pamela Lawson said what selling method farmers chose needed to reflect the type of stock they were offering and the associated costs as well as any animal welfare considerations.

“It really is about tailoring your livestock marketing to suit your needs.

Different selling methods are suited to certain types of stock.

For producers living a long distance from a saleyard complex transport costs and the toll the journey will have on the stock’s presentation are considerations.

The degree of market competition is also important. Saleyard selling and on-line methods give the largest amounts of competition but there is the ability to negotiate with buyers when using other selling options”, Ms Lawson said.

Kondinin Group’s livestock marketing research report is featured in the June edition of the Group’s flagship publication Farming Ahead and on-line at www.farmingahead.com.au.

Established during 1955, Kondinin Group is committed to helping farmers. With a large and diverse membership across Australia, Kondinin Group continues to invest in agriculture by providing members with independent, reliable and practical information.

For more information, please contact Debbie Boxall Kondinin Group marketing officer on 08 9478 8328.

Victorian Cattle producer Jenny Bird writes: Location

This feed on steer job is beginning to look like a waste of time and effort.

Sowing oats and rye on the promise of rain ……..was meant to be started on Monday…..but that’s how farming goes sometimes!!!

Sent another 64 head of steers to my father’s 400 acres of hill ….he’s got more grass than me this season …waiting for a lift in the feedlot price!!!

I have the second B Double of Angus pictured below ready to roll out and locked in at $1:85 to go in 6 weeks time. but the coloured cattle price has to go up over $1:80 to pay the extra trucking costs. It is all starting to get scary.

Some of the ‘coloured’ milk and 2 tooth steers are pictured below. Their weight range is 420 to 480 kg and thirty head consume a silage roll every second day while they have been on the last of the irrigated pasture. Tomorrow they are locked out of the sown paddocks and have silage only. This dam they are beside has a 20 mg water licence anad can be replenished from the lagoon and dams above it.

So the plan is to get 150 acres under oats and rye pictured below and get as much silage put away early in spring and re sow suitable paddocks with perennial…and pray for rain!

I will do a few smaller paddocks with perennial just as a test to see what I could have got away with!!! But the better perennial mixture of ryes and clovers is $5 to $12 a kg…..so I opted for some the local favourite at $3:70 a kg. I’m not a big gambler!

The mountains are capped with snow and the record lowest temperatures on record have put the wind up me too. Frosts are predicted for the next week or so. The whole exercise has cost double what I had budgeted on 12 months ago.

Fuel delivered on farm was $1:72 a week ago before the big price rise…..I am not game to re order before I go for the over draft extension!!! The contractor Mark pictured below is the cheapest cost of all at $60 a hectare ……I felt so guilty I have offered to fill his tank before he pulls out tomorrow.

Sowing rates are at 80 kg oats (at $300 a tonne)/ 8 kg annual rye (at $2 a kg)/ 80 kg DAP (at $1630 a tonne) to the hectare. DAP $1600 a tonne bagged…………$4800 Oats $300 X 3.3 tonne off farm and $550 X 1 tonne cleaned and private buy……..$1540 Annual rye $3 X 400kg……..$1200 (Couldn’t afford the $12 a kg perennial) Double spraying out as the weeds got away again……..$3000 Sowing contractor $60 per hectare………$2500 plus diesel.

So 40 hectares of potential growth and potential silage with maybe a chance to strip graze the irrigated 25 acres pictured below will mean I may be able to better than double the 300 steers and 50 cows and calves I turned off it in the last 6 months.

The buy in price of weaners is more than you can see getting for the 450 kg product after drench and trucking costs. Doing $9000 silage rolls and then feed them, $9000 on 60 litres of Fasimec….and thousands on Pestigard….. sweat tears of blood waiting for the price to lift and worry if the cattle are going to fit into a Swift grid targeted at the milk and 2 tooth 380 to 499kg empty weight with the crunch back to $1:83 for those over and under with no compensation for doing them twice with Pesigard at $8 a head!

There’s got to be an easier way of making money……let me know when you find it will you?

My estimated input costs have doubled!!!

It wouldn’t hurt so much if you could see it back in the steer price or could look forward to $2500 a hectare return for your grain in 7 months time……..but this feed on steer job is beginning to look like a waste of time and effort.

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Have Your Say!

Farm input costs are rising, how are you coping?.

Leave your comment below or click on the Blue word Comments and the comments box will appear.

Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:

TEYS Brothers has bought the South Burnett meatworks at Murgon. South Burnett Beef went into receivership in May last year putting 350 local people out of work. The collapse of the company effectively left southern QLD with just two export grass beef processors.

Whether South Burnett meatworkers can look forward to a recall to work anytime soon remains to be seen.

Teys, has four major operational plants in Australia which are:

Queensland

Beenliegh (Between Brisbane & the Gold Coast) daily capacity of 1,400 cattle with 800 employees. Beenliegh is the Groups head office and kills all of the grainfed cattle from their feedlot at Condamine.

Rockhampton - daily capacity of 1,700 and employs 900 people. Rockhampton’s single largest employer.

Biloela - (South West of Rockhampton) daily capacity of 700 head and employs 400 people.

South Australia:

Naracoorte - (South East South Australia near Victorian Border) daily capacity of 550 head and employs 300 people. Naracoorte’s single largest employer.

Teys owns two other Plants that are not operational - Innisfail in North QLD that previously had employed 200 people and could kill 600 a day and Katherine in the Northern Territory.

We asked Livestock Executive Director Geoff Teys did they plan to reopen the works, but he told us that Chairman Allan Teys was the only one in the company authorized to speak about the purchase. Allan Teys is away for the next two weeks.

Teys is the largest Australian-owned and second-largest beef processing company in Australia after Brazil’s JBS group, which last year gained control of Queensland-based Australian Meat Holdings. Teys processes about one million cattle and turns over more than $1.2 billion.

Have Your Say!

Leave your comment below or click on the Blue word Comments to bring up the reply box.

Northern Territory grazier Rashida Khan writes:

I am sick of hearing from self styled environmentalists, animal rights campaigners and other highly emotive anti-farm people, who whine in the spotlight and yet offer no viable solutions or alternatives to the issue they are raising.

I feel the need to comment on the Anti Live Export movement. Live Export represents the sole market for many northern graziers like my family. If this is stopped, then what do the animal lobbyists suggest graziers do with our cattle?

That’s me in the photo below on my horse mustering at our place near Batchelor in the Northern Territory. 

Most of our beef goes to Indonesia; the animals are held in feedlots and then slaughtered according to consumer demand. Refrigeration is not wide spread in much of Indonesia and Live Export means people can still have access to high quality protein in their diet.

We can’t afford to import or grow grain for feedloting and our slaughter houses have all closed one after the other, leaving northern graziers with limited marketing options.

Photo of our Brahman and Brahman cross steers ready to go to the live Export trade. 

Darwin is closer to Indonesia than it is to Alice Springs, Townsville or Adelaide. When exported our cattle are traveling for the minimum amount of time, they gain weight on the boat (a sign of unstressed healthy animals) and they are handled carefully when they arrive. Unfortunately, you don’t see any film crews watching the cattle walk calmly off a boat, or photos of healthy cattle chewing their cuds mid voyage.

Photo of our Brahman cross breeders with calves at foot in the paddock. 

Here’s something to ponder. If live export stops; then cattle will have to be sent interstate.

-To minimize stress they will have to stay loaded till they reach their destination which means traveling unnecessary long distances without feed or water.

-How will we fill the current labour shortage to slaughter and process these cattle?

-Who will build facilities to accept cold stores in Indonesia? Remembering that currently 80% of beef is bought in the wet market

-What will happen to the Indonesian feedlot industry when they have feedlots but no cattle? They will buy elsewhere of course. Our biggest competitor, Brazil, will step up to the plate with cheaper beef and to address the new market they will log some more of the Amazon Jungle. This means Aussies out of jobs and monkeys out of trees.

When the lobbyists have answers and plausible alternatives to Live Export then they should state their case. I suspect that if they succeed in stopping Live Export, the lobbyists will be like the dog that finally caught the motor car!

Have Your Say! Should the federal government cave into pressure from animal rights groups and ban all Live Exports of Cattle and sheep from Australia? Leave your thoughts or questions for Rashida. Click on the Blue word Comments below and type your comment.

Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:

Announcing the launch of the all new Agmates site - “Where Rural and Regional Australian’s Buy & Sell“.

See above, at the top of the news page now gives you the ability to click through to anywhere on the entire site and back to the news. Click on Home and it takes you to the front page of the new site - see below.

Save 1,000’s of dollars in commission and advertising costs when your selling. Find what your looking for anywhere in Australia. Do it all from your own computer - reach 1,000’s of people across Rural & Regional Australia with your product or message.

Agmates makes it so simple and cheap to build your own web listing - no computer skills required. If you can type and send an email you can now create your own web listing on Agmates. Not only that but you can change it anytime you like, right from your home or office computer, any time, night or day.

Click on the “BROWSE” tab to find Agistment, Breeding Studs, Cattle, CD’s-Games-Books, Contractors, Dairy Cattle, Dogs, Goats, Horses, Jobs, People Looking For Things, Lost & Found, Machinery & Plant, Other Livestock, Businesses, Real Estate, Sheep. See the browse page below and all the sub categories.

Each category tells you how many items are listed for sale with a number in brackets. Click on anything your looking for (with a number in the brackets, 0 means no listings yet) and it will take you directly to the category.

You then chose the sub category at the top of the page or just click on one of the listings you see on your page, to see the full description and the photos. When the photos are clicked on they open up to a large size. See the example of a Charbray Stud listing below, with in this case with up to 20 photos. At any time you can go back by clicking the BROWSE tab at the top.

Selling on the Agmates is simple, easy and cheap.

Just click on the “SELL” tab at the top to start the process. Then you just click which main category your item goes into and click next at the bottom. The only thing you should do before you start is know how many photos you have and resize them for uploading (this is the only technical bit). For uploading speed it’s best to get your photos under 100kb (if your on broadband if on dial up under 40kb) or a mx of 1,000 x 800. Don’t know how to resize photos? There are very detailed help notes on this page and if that does not work then there is a 24 hour, 7 day a week help line you can call. See the Sell page here.

Depending on which category you chose on the above screen the next screen asks you now to chose a sub category, you click it and then click next at the bottom. In this example if you choose “Cattle” on the above screen the next one will ask you to chose what type of cattle. See below.

Your listing is well under way, just add price, description & photos and your done.

Now on the next screen if you are listing cattle as in this example, you 1st enter your asking price, then the GST amount and then the total (Australian Taxation Law requires this). Then you enter the Title. The title is the 1st thing that people see so make it descriptive. Then the details of what you are selling. Don’t be concerned about making mistakes, once the listing is live you can alter / change any of this at any time through your “My Agmates” page.

When you are finished with the details just click next at the bottom. You have almost finished. (If you are not logged in or have not registered as a user you will be asked to do so here.)

Uploading Your Photo’s

Now just to upload your photos and activate the listing. All you do is click the Browse button on the screen. A window will open and you find the file on your computer where you have saved the resized photos . Once you have found the file and opened it click on the photo you want and click open. (You don’t have to find the file the second time, the computer remembers where they are).

Then it the text box below type in a few words that describe to people what they are seeing in the photo. Then click upload and wait. If you are on broadband and your photo is under 100kb it will take about 10 seconds. If you are not on broadband make sure that you photos are under 40kb or it will take a few minutes for each photo to load. Then just repeat the steps until all of your allowable photo’s have uploaded. You can change your photos or the description at any time once it is live through your “My Agmates” page.

You have finished creating you listing, you can see it by clicking the Preview listing link. Your listing is only visible to you until you have made payment.

Making Payments:

If you are comfortable using your credit card, click the PayPal button and go ahead and make payment with your credit card. PayPal handles all of our credit card payments. Your credit card details are removed from PayPal as soon as payment is made. Neither Agmates or PayPal stores your credit card details, so it is totally safe. We use PayPal because they are the number one credit card payment processor in the world. The millions or credit card payment made on EBay are all processed by PayPal. You don’t need to join PayPal to use it just click the link “Other’ at the bottom and enter your card details. When you are finished you’ll coome straight back to Agmates and your listing will be live for the world to see.

Manual Invoice: If you are not comfortable using your credit card, just click the Manual Invoice button. Another screen will open and just click on Send an Email to notify us that you have place an ad and are requesting an invoice. We will then email an invoice to you and can pay by Cheque or Direct Deposit. You listing does not appear live until payment has been received. Note there is an extra $10 processing charged on your listing for manual invoicing.

Studs, Businesses, Contractors and Real Estate Listing have the choice of two listing layouts. You can change from one to the other at any time through your “My Agmates” tab. This is a example of a cluster type photo display -

And this is exactly the same property ad with the photos displayed stacked on top of one another and the photo description appearing in text along side. This may be attractive to Studs, Business, Contractors who want to advertise up to 20 different animals / items / services with different details and prices. It is a web site within a web site.

There are many other, small little features that make Agmates so easy to use. Try it and see for yourself. Just click on the “HOME” tab at the top of this page to go straight to the site.

Please leave us your thoughts, comments, questions or suggests for changes or inclusions to the site. We are committed to providing you with a simple, user friendly and cheap way to sell and buy in Rural & Regional Australia.

QLD Nationals Senator Barnaby Joyce writes:

The New Year has arrived for Parliament and the Bogong moths, so prevalent in Canberra’s Parliament House, catching on fire in lights, setting off alarms and generally disturbing the dignity of proceedings, have finished their migration north; dropping in at my office in their thousands to get the quinella of both Canberra and St George.

Photo of Senator Joyce’s Office invaded by the Bogong Moths at St George Western Queensland.

Surprisingly enough they only appear in large numbers in St George on our building, very discerning moths indeed. The political migration south must be imminent and, in the process of watching the moths being consumed by the birds from the office window, it is time to consider what is imminent in the year ahead.

The Senate shall be crucial in the coming term as the only mechanism able to force mitigation to the effect of one party rule in Australia. I hope the commitments given by Labor in amendments moved to the Trade Practices Act in the final weeks of Parliament last year are honoured in the current year and also that Telstra is held to its promise not to withdraw CDMA until the Next G network is equivalent or better.

“Most importantly, it will be vital that Labor’s rhetoric on economic management matches, in some fashion, its capacity. The economic world appears to be entering a period of turmoil. Australians have relied upon the Coalition’s management, confidence in whose ability brought higher debt levels because people could rely upon lower interest rates. A change in this fundamental of economics will have catastrophic effect upon the personal wealth of Australians and the economic base of our nation. Australia is geared for stability and the management of instability will be crucial.

Barnaby at a local St George service station, showing his support for Ethanol-blended fuel.

Fuel shall drain the budgets of working families because of the complete lack of motivation to proceed with cheaper alternatives such as ethanol for fear of offending the inherent oil company oligopoly. The oil companies are making a fortune out of their control of our total reliance upon the products only they produce and market. The only real competition to the oil companies is the family budget’s inability to pay for fuel so that families can no longer afford to drive.

Finally if Iran provokes a fight with the US then all else, as a problem, will pale into insignificance. Senator Joyce said today.

Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:

The Agmates Rural Marketing web site is just 9 months old. In that time just 27 Cattle producers have sold 3,748 cattle off the site, without paying a quarter of a million dollars in selling costs.

I’ve just done the figures and since the site launched on the 28th of March 2007. The 27 Cattle producers have sold just on two and a half million dollars worth ($2,480,000) of cattle from listings on the site.

A mob of Simbrah heifers listed from North Queensland sold off the site to a buyer in South east Queensland