Agmates

This is part 1 in a 5 part information and education series on biosequestration of carbon in Soil.

The presenter is Dr Christine Jones who is an internationally renowned and highly respected groundcover and soils ecologist.

Dr Jones has a wealth of experience working with innovative landholders to implement regenerative land management techniques that enhance biodiversity, increase biological activity, sequester carbon, activate soil nutrient cycles, restore water balance, improve productivity and create new topsoil.

This video is the first of a 5 part series covering the Keynote presentation that she gave at the 2008 Queensland Landcare Conference just last month at Monto .

We’ll run the rest of this series over the next week.

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(thanks to Agmates readers, Ian & Oscar Pearce of AgForce and Beryl and Cec Bleys of Monto who filmed the presentation.)

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Agmates Video Gallery.

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Have Your say!

Seen a video or you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

It was disappointing to see ABC TV Media Watch program tear into Rural Press’s QLD Country Life last night over appalling examples of “churnalism”.

Of course the QCL deserves it, but still I’m disappointed. Back on the 8th of December last year I called for Rural Press to remove the QCL’s editor Mark Phelps if it wished to restore the papers credibility.

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That was the last time I wrote about how really bad the QCL is.

Since then I’ve just ignored the fact that they just turn out other organizations Media Releases virtually unaltered as news.

How do I know, I get many of the same press releases sometimes a week before I’ll see them printed word for word in the QCL as ‘news’.

I was disappointed that Media Watch exposed what most readers sensed was going on anyway. That sense is that QLD farmers get very little or no objective reporting on the vital rural issues of the day, instead they are just served up the regurgitated (by the QCL) media spin of Government Departments, and farmer peak bodies.

For example Media Watch higlited articles run word for word either in the paper or at their on line web site. These articles were run word for word off these organizations press releases but passed off as ‘news’. In professional journalism that practice is given the derisive name “Churnalism”.

Queensland Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries (DPI&F) Weed Sciences team

Cotton Australia

Australian Wool Innovation LTD (AWI)

AgForce

Queensland Farmers Federation. (QFF)

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QCL has also had trouble with the press council over biased reporting against the Australian Beef Association. ABA is considered by many as anti establishment and has certainly been critical of many of the Peak Industry Groups (those groups who’s media releases QCL preprints as news).

Indeed the QCL and ABA have been at loggerheads for years with the QCL branding ABA as a “radical” producer organization.

Twice the QCL have had complaints made against them by directors of the Australian Beef Association for biased reporting. Embarrassingly on both occasions those complaints were either fully or partly ‘upheld’ and the QCL has had to print an apology.

However as I said I’m disappointed that Media Watch has targeted QCL. When I launched Agmates I advertised the site in the QCL. After a couple of weeks I had a phone call from QCL’s John Condon, an old mate of mine.

John rang personally to advise that a decission had been made ‘at a board meeting’ that they would not accept any paid advertising for the Agmates web site.

In simple terms, we had been “black banned” by Rural Press. The reason I was given was that they had decided that the Agmates business was a threat to their Newspaper business and they were not prepared to advertise Agmates.

As it turned out it has not affected us at all. With over 10,000 site visitors a month and growing at 25% - every month we are doing OK.

But what they are really frightened of is when farmers and agents realize that they can use the Classified & Auction part of the Agmates site and get better and wider coverage for their advertising dollar at a fraction of the price.

For example - a property ad with 20 colour photos is on Agmates until it sold (or 12 months) is just $220. The same ad in the QCL with as many photos would be approx $12,000 - $14,000 and run for just one week and only seen in QLD. Similarly Business & Studs can advertise on Agmates with 12 colour photos for just $440 a year. Auctions are also now available with a ’success fee’ only. If it doesn’t sell, it Free.

So Rural Press was doing its best to kill Agmates before it got started. They are terrified of losing the millions of dollars farmers and ag companies spend on advertising each year in their papers.

Rural Press is terrified that its “Rural Rivers of Gold” classified advertising will dry up just like it is for them in their metropolitan papers.

That being the case, without quality journalism there will be no need to buy the QCL at all.

Just yesterday in a email newsletter to my Agmates Co Owners I wrote:

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“The future of media is not the newspaper that you currently get each week, its online. An example of this is Fairfax Media who own Rural Press. Fairfax just announced they were putting off 550 employees here in Australia - 70-80 of which are Journalists.

The reason is that they are losing $2m a month out of their Newspaper Classifieds (known in the past as the “rivers of gold”) in Sydney & Melbourne.

That advertising is going online and they don’t have a strong online presence in Australia. Their best performing business is Rural Press and they are looking at modeling the rest of their business on Rural Press.

Rural press is Fairfax’s best performing business because in the niche Rural Market they have virtually no newspaper competition in the 5 states they operate in. Rural press also is a success because they don’t employ a lot of Journalists. But their Classified business is hugely profitable.

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Media Watch should just stand back and leave it to Rural Press and the QCL too keep up the good work.

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Have Your say!

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Got a tip off, article or have you seen a video or item you’d like to be seen by the Agmates Community? If so please email it to us at news@agmates.com

In today’s Courier Mail - The headlines scream in their Talking Point (P32 / 10/09/2008):

With Increasing global temperatures, the continued practice of land clearing may well turn our state into a desert.

Owen Jackson [of Morningside Brisbane] says its time to enforce land clearing bans.

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“I FOUND the article “Clearing’s heavy toll on wildlife” (C_M, Sept alarming and distressing.

The figures revealed in this article present an obvious contradiction to government plans to ban land clearing from 2006.

It was previously reported that a satellite search of QLD found that between 2001 and 2003, one million hectares of QLD’s vegetation was cleared. In other words, the rate remains unchanged. When is the government going to act?

The ecosystems of the Australian environment are particularly vulnerable due to the scarcity of water and fragile soils. We never be able to repair this damage.

With increasing global temperatures, the continued practice of land clearing may well turn our state into a desert.

In 2003, a $150 million package was jointly funded by the QLD & Commonwealth Government to assist the farming community with the vegetation clearing restrictions.

Why didn’t these funds make a difference? We need to work together to support the environment as it supports us.”

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This is my comment from Agmates article -

Courier Mail Outrageous attack on farmers & rural QLD.

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“Good on you Ian, Judy & Von,

It is interesting to note other farmers have not expressed their outrage at this Courier Mail biased.

Especially those involved in AgForce who spend a small fortune each year in the Queensland Country Life telling people “every family needs a farmer” which always amuses me in that it’s preaching to the converted. In fairness they do spend a bit of that money on TV ads that I imagine reach Brisbane and the major regional centres.

However he’s is how this works.

1. The WWF in cohorts with the Courier Mail commence an unchecked campaign to pressure the state government over an issue. This one is to ban any tidying up of regrowth / woody weeds, the last one was banning Gamba grass etc.

2. The Urban population then reads this unchallenged rubbish and not seeing any rebuttal they belive its a fact. I mean they could buy the Country Life, but with a circulation of 35,000 copies a week with 5,000 of those going to government public servants - leaves about 30,000 copies. Now Brisbane has a population of 1,000,000, the gold coast 500,000 and a total state pop of 4 million I don’t need to tell you that most Queenslanders or 3,975,000 people don’t read the QCL.

3. The government then reacts to concerns of the voting public (read urban voters), and the Green lobby pressure. They announce something to sooth the worries of the Urban voters and the greens.

4. At the 11th hour AgForce get involved trying to get a decent outcome for the bush. But by that time - the government has made up its mind.

5. The government passes new legislation to ban whatever it is, The bush is up in arms, the new law is in and the Greens and the Courier Mail has another win.

The time to be up in arms, to debunk the hysterical claims of the greens is now - not after the horse has bolted.

But it would appear that you 3 and myself are the only ones who care enough to have a say.

I’ll wager there will be plenty of bush people screaming ‘blue murder’ after the greens get there way and have all treatment of regrowth / woody weeds banned.

Just can’t be bothered to start screaming ‘bloody murder’ when it can actually do some good.

Oh well we tried.”

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We invite you to have your say. Unlike the Queensland Country Life, your Agmates Online Rural News media is read by country and city folks right across Australia and internationally.

As Kevin Rudd said in todays media.

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“Mr Rudd told an international newspaper conference on the Gold Coast yesterday that his wife, Therese, and three children got their news online and he was “the last of the Mohicans” when it came to reading the papers.”

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Your say does make a difference on Agmates.

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Agmates broke the news last Friday that the radical Green conservation group World Wildlife Fund is mounting a media campaign to pressure the QLD government to stop farmers treating woody weed regrowth.

Rural Lobby group AgForce has contacted us to advise that they have received many copies of our article and are ‘onto it.’ [ thanks to our Agmates readers]

Heres the latest from todays Brisbane Courier Mail. This an absolutely disgraceful article by the Couriers Environmental writer Brian Williams. You can see the online version here.

Curiously the online version does not include the disgraceful allegations of wildlife numbers being slaughtered by farmers that is printed in the physical paper.

It’s a full half page article on page 14, 8/09/2009. He is what has been left out of the online article:

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Mr Heath [sic WWF spokesperson] said 70 million animals were likely to have been killed by the clearing in 2005-06 based on estimates in a report by scientists Dr Hal Cogger, Professor Hugh Ford, Dr Christopher Johnson, James Holman and Don Bulter.

In 2003 they found about 100 million animals were killed when an avergae 446,000ha remnant vegetation was cleared in 1997-99.

This included 19,000 Koalas, 342,000 possums and gliders - 8,500,000 birds and 89,000,000 (thats right 89 million) reptiles.

Mr Heath said the massive losses were unacceptable. “It’s a huge blow for our wildlife, our climate, our rivers and the reefs.”

“The animals that are wiped out suffer horribly as they are burnt or starved to death.”

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And From the web site:

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“Queensland will fail to reduce emissions if it continues to allow this level of land clearing,” Mr Heath said.

“Halting the practice is a cheap and easy way of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”

WWF said the Queensland Government should act immediately to stop all clearing of endangered, vulnerable or threatened regional ecosystems.

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It is no wonder that urban dwellers have the view that farmers are “rednecked environmental vandals”. The reporting by Brisbane’s only daily newspaper is pure green propaganda, offensive and a disgrace.

Anyone with an ounce of common sense will tell you that the above figures of wildlife death are green hysteria and pure fabrication. Courier Mail environmental journalist Brian Williams should be sacked for printing this obvious beat up designed to denigrate farmers and pressure the government.

AgForce should be seeking legal advise on behalf of all QLD farmers. They should be suing Brian Williams and the Courier Mail for defamation.

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Have Your say!

Are you disgusted and horrified by the blatant biased reporting and obvious use of journalistic power to portray QLD farmers as environmental vandals and the heartless mass slaughter of our wild life.

All QLD farmers and rural people should be demanding a full retraction and public apology and the immediate sacking of Brian Williams.

The Courier Mail is nothing more than a Radiacl Green propaganda rag mascarading as a respected city news paper.

It is an anti QLD farmer, anti rural QLD community publication. You could make your own protest in a small but effective way - Don’t buy it or advertise in it until they remedy this outrage.

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WFF starts campaign to pressure QLD Natural resources Minister Craig Wallace to remove exemption on clearing of regrowth.

Yesterday I wrote about a disgraceful article that Crikey anti farmer reporter Bernard Keane had written. QLD Farmer illegally land clearing.

I asked why he would launch such a blatant attack on farmers. Agmates reader Peter pointed out the the figures he was quoting were 2-3 years old (2005-2006) and that Courier Mail ‘journalist’ Brian Williams had run a similar article in todays paper, Outback Clearing Continues despite Tree Laws.

At first glance I thought the article was just a grubby example of ‘churn’ journalism as it quoted the same 2-3 year old figures. But then I had a closer look at it. Straight away you can see what the grubs at the radical green group WWF are up too.

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WWF-Australia spokesman Nick Heath said the clearing was equivalent to 5.1 million average-sized suburban blocks and accounted for 24 per cent of the state’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr Heath said that, despite new state laws, loopholes had allowed farmers to clear an enormous amount of land.

He called for a clearing moratorium until the loopholes were plugged.

There have been a lot of good intentions in recent years but the fact remains total clearing is relatively unchanged from mid-90s,” Mr Heath said.

The loopholes included the regrowth exemption, under which an area as big as Tasmania could be cleared without a permit.”

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And obviously they are putting the pressure on QLD Natural Resources Minister Craig Wallace.

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“A spokeswoman for Natural Resources Minister Craig Wallace said the figures were being investigated.”

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Typical of WWF - use years old data and blatant miss truths to beat up a story to put pressure on the Minister to ban cleaning of of regrowth.

Queensland farmers & graziers need too send this article too your local AgForce rep and get them to kill this move to scrap the regrowth exemption with the minister before it gains any traction in his or his departments minds.

(thanks to Agmates reader Peter from Roma)

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Have Your say!

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National Transport Industry Shutdown Convener Mick Pattel will meet with Qld Minister for Transport John Mickel (pictured) tomorrow saturady the 19th of June.

At the meeting in Brisbane, Richmond Livestock transport owner Mick Pattel will present to the minister the log of claims that has been developed by transport owners & drivers after recent well attended meetings held in Toowoomba, Emerald, Townsville, Dubbo, Wyong and Bendigo.

The shutdown which is scheduled to start in 10 days time is an incredible grass roots uprising from drivers and smaller transport business owners.

On the same day Mick Pattel is also due to meet with powerful Queensland Transport Workers Union Secretary Hughie Williams (pictured) to discuss the Shutdown. Many of Mr Williams members will be involved in the shutdown.

Without any support from peak bodies such as the Australian Trucking Association (ATA) or State Transport associations who all oppose the shutdown it is estimated that 70% of drivers across industries such as Livestock Carriers, fuel tanks and refrigerated food trucks will stay at home for two weeks.

Many of the larger transport companies do not support the shut down but will be dragged into the dispute as more and more of their drivers elect to stay at home rather than drive.

The peak transport body the ATA who have been involved in the implementation of the new National Transport Legislation which is to come into effect at the end of September are vehemently opposed to the shutdown.

If the grassroots movement is successful in having 70% of drivers staying away from work the Peak transport bodies will extremely embarrassed as they will be seen as unrepresentative of their grassroots members.

Repeated request from Mick Pattel and his delegates for a meeting with the peak trucking body (Australian Trucking Association ATA) Chief Executive Stuart St Clair (pictured) have been stone walled by Mr St Clair who has stated publicly he is willing to meet with the group, but to date has never been available.

The shutdown is generating tremendous support with QLD State farming organization AgForce backing the shut down.

The owners and drivers delegate in Victoria Russell Borchard of Borchard transport at Mildura has told us that support for the shut down is growing each day.

“We have the backing of farmers, stock agents, fruit growers as well as hundreds of drivers. Everybody I speak to in Victoria and South Australia is right behind us. The numbers are just growing every day.”

I spoke to the head of the New South Wales Farmers Federation Jock Laurie at home on his farm today. He told us that the Organization was yet to consider whether they would throw their support behind the Shutdown as AgForce had.

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Have Your say!

Queensland - Peak State Farming Body AgForce is urging rural producers and those living in Rural communities to prepare themselves for the 2 week National Transport Shut down.

In a statement issued today - AgForce Cattle President Greg Brown (pictured) said -

“We are urging people to be aware of the potential disruption likely to flow from the upcoming truck stoppage on July 28 so that they are not caught unprepared.

Livestock sales and disposal will be affected by the proposed transport shutdown, particularly cattle producers moving stock out of drought-affected north-west Queensland.

However it is not just livestock managers that need to be aware because all supplies in and out of the bush are delivered on trucks, therefore a national road transport shutdown will cause inconvenience to all users and consumers if they do not take steps to stock up on essentials and plan ahead.

Both rural and urban consumers need to understand that a viable transport sector is vital because everything we all use is transported on a truck at some stage.

Consumers should get behind the truckies and tell the government in the strongest possible terms to stop implementing policy that will put transport operators out of business.

The issues that have sparked this truck strike are very concerning for livestock producers because everything we use in our businesses, and nearly all of stock movements, come and go in a truck.”

AgForce Cattle and AgForce Sheep & Wool boards are supporting the proposed stoppage by drivers and operators, in the hope it will highlight the increasing frustrations of rural road transport operators and customers.

AgForce has strong concerns that a number of recent transport legislative changes will not be practical and will significantly increase the operating costs of Queensland livestock producers.

The four main trucking regulatory changes that will impact on livestock businesses are changes to the chain of responsibility legislation, increased registration fees for B-Double trucks, changes in fatigue management regulations and log-book procedures.

New chain of responsibility laws come into effect in September and will dramatically change the roles and responsibilities of those involved in the loading, unloading and scheduling of road transport. Greg Brown goes on to say:

“AgForce Cattle and AgForce Sheep & Wool boards are concerned that transport regulatory bodies at state and federal level do not yet understand the complexities and practices of livestock transport in rural and remote Australia and the full implications these changes will have on beef and sheep producing businesses

Some cattle producers in outlying areas are already paying 15-20 percent of the animals’ value to truck them to market, so any changes that will increase these costs risk making rural businesses unviable.

In addition, for livestock transport you have to manage what appears to be conflicting road safety and animal welfare requirements, whilst operating on a commercially viable basis. That is why we want exemptions from some of the rules for livestock carriers.

Given this frustrating situation, we are not surprised that truck operators and drivers are organising this stoppage on July 28 and we feel obliged to add our concerns on behalf of livestock producers.

Hopefully this protest increases State and Federal government awareness of the scope of the problems facing the road transport industry for livestock producers and that the need of exemptions for livestock carriers will be recognised.

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Have Your Say! Tell us what are you doing to prepare for the 2 week transport shutdown. Do you support Mick Pattel and truck drivers across Australia struggling for a fair go?

Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:

Forget all the arguments about global warming being real or not. It’s too late for that.

What is real is that Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is hell bent on introducing an Emissions Trading Scheme to prove to the world what a good global citizen Australia is, regardless of the consequences to our economy.

What the main stream media have missed in the flood of coverage is the potential devastation to rural Australia the emission trading scheme will be.

Agriculture will not be a ‘covered’ industry, you can back that in.

That is of little consequence. What it does mean is that an emission trading scheme will dramatically increase the cost of every farm input. Farmers unlike power stations and fuel refiners have zero ability to pass those costs on.

AgForce President Peter Kenny (pictured) tells us that the modeling AgForce has done has shown that farm input costs will increase by 15-40% depending on the industry.

Livestock producers are at the lower end of the scale with grain croppers and intensive industries at the high end.

This coming on top of a record year of AgFlation will be the death knell for many smaller farmers.

New South Wales Farmers Federation President Jock Laurie (pictured) recently told us that they believe AgFlation based on the 4 major farm inputs - chemical, fertiliser, diesel and interest rates is running somewhere between 60 and 80%.

Jock said that they were waiting on modelling to be completed to come up with the final figure.

It is up to the National Farmers Federation as the peak farmer lobby to put farmers case before PM Rudd and his team. If they are not able to secure some relief for farmers from the burden of the emissions trading scheme we will see the greatest upheaval in rural Australia in our history.

Family farms will be sold into large corporate farming ventures. Corporates with massive dollars behind them will be able to survive as they can operate under the efficiencies of sheer size & scale.

Corporate farming operations however do little or nothing for rural communities many of which will shrivel and eventually die under such a scenario. When a corporate operates a farming enterprise that was once operated by say 10 smaller family farms they do it with a skeleton permanent work force supplemented by ‘fly in’ contractors.

Infrastructure and services such as schools, hospitals, doctors, chemists and service businesses in these small communities depend on farming families. Without them these communities have no future.

So forget worrying about the 3 million people who may lose their jobs in the Energy sector, and power stations closing down. Those industries can pass their cost of emission permits onto consumers.

Be worried, very worried about yourselves and the 1,000’s of other family farms that simply will not be viable as the manufacturers of every farm input, steel, timber, rubber, water, electricity, machinery, chemical, fertilizer, diesel, power etc pass those costs onto farmers who have no ability to pass them onto their customers.

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Update 11am - 7th July 2008

Victorian Agmate Jenny Bird has sent us this from todays Border Mail.

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Have Your say!

Agmates Editor Steve Truman writes:

Agmates has nothing but praise for the lobbying that State Farming Body AgForce has done to bring about a national pasture fed certification for beef.

Central QLD Cattleman Ian McCamley, MCC Pastoral “Ganadero” Comet (Location) is the AgForce Cattle Board vice president. In that role he has been lobbying the Cattle Council of Australia (CCA) for some years for an AUS-MEAT accredited beef pasture certification.

“Finally the CCA has agreed to investigate and work towards the development of a new beef identification standard that is AUS-MEAT certified” Ian said.

Picture # 1: Ian McCamley in a yard of his pasture-fed & naturally raised prime cattle set to go off into the food chain on Thursday the 1st of May.

“Grain-fed beef has had its own certification for years. In fact in Australia it’s the only certification, all other beef we produce goes into a basket classified as ‘other’. The 3 main markets for our beef are grain-fed, grass-fed and live export.

AgForce believes it is time for grass-fed beef, which is exclusively naturally raised in the paddock, to be distinctively identified for the benefit of consumers who are increasingly interested in how their food is produced,” Ian said.

Photo # 2: Ian and his family took these photos for Agmates on the 1st of May. Below they are mustering these bullocks ‘the boys’ off natural Buffel grass pasture on Ganadero at Comet Central Queensland.

AgForces proposal is that Pasture-fed naturally raised beef will be developed as the new national standard to underpin the quality and integrity of beef that has been exclusively finished on grass.

That beef will be exported with an AUS-MEAT natural pasture fed beef stamp on it. AgForce is also are calling for MSA (Meat Standards Australia) certification and stamping to guarantee the eating quality to beef consumers.

Photo# 3: ‘The boys’ calmly strolling into the Cattle yards for drafting and trucking.

Ian Said, “Consumers are focusing more attention on how farm animals are raised, therefore we believe there is an opportunity to differentiate more of our great product.”

“We also believe a new natural beef standard has the potential to extract market advantages and price advantages for our natural and healthy pasture raised and fatten beef.”

Photo # 4: ‘The boys’ yarded at Ganadero. Now to draft out the fat’s. Shouldn’t be to hard to get a load out of these.

AgForce recently met with AUS-MEAT and Cattle Council staff to discuss the best way to develop a standard to certify pasture-fed natural beef.

“We (AgForce) are taking an oversight role on a project to investigate the market performance of a new natural-beef line and identify exactly what is likely to spark consumer interest,” Ian said.

Photo # 5: McCamley bullocks “the boys” during the draft. Raised and finished on natural pastures. They are calm and quiet to handle.

“We want to capture an opportunity to grow the overall beef market by meeting new consumer requirements for environmental or other attributes, whilst ensuring meat-eating quality through use of MSA.”

AgForce said the push for a pasture-fed beef standard in Australia follows new American USDA Agricultural Marketing Service regulations on “grass-fed” and forthcoming regulations on “natural” beef.

“We believe we can easily meet any US “grass-fed” regulations that are in place. Our competitor countries such as Uruguay already have USDA approval for their systems to be recognised.

This coupled with the drop off in volume of grain-fed beef available to markets due higher grain prices leads us at AgForce to believe Australia needs to progress this new standard quickly for producers of our natural grass finished beef to able to be truly competitive in world markets.”

Photo # 6: There thats done. Ian’s and his family are finished drafting the “the boys” and everyones happy.

Agmates wonders why it has fallen to graziers like Ian & AgForce to have to lobby CCA to implement a “pasture-fed” standard that will no doubt have many advantages in differentiating and marketing or great natural grass fed beef. Surely this should work should be done by the producer levies funded Meat & Livestock Australia?
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Have Your say!

Say G’day to Ian, leave a comment or question, I’m sure he’ll be happy to answer any on this topic.