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Reports today say that Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) is launching a campaign promoting what the beef industry says is the truth about livestock’s environmental footprint. I’ve not seen all the details of this campaign but on the surface, it will be an excellent  and responsible use of livestock owners levy money.

From a report in the Weekly Times:

David Palmer

“MLA will use farmer ambassadors from across the nation to promote the “truth” behind Australian red-meat production systems and trounce misleading and damaging “urban myths”.

MLA managing director David Palmer said the campaign would ensure producers were represented fairly in the debate over agriculture’s environmental impact.

The campaign will target community leaders and the urban media.”

In reality MLA are the logical body to take up this environmental fight on behalf of livestock producers as they have the money to do so.

MLA collect $160 million a year from Australian livestock producers. Livestock producers businesses are under constant pressure from special interest environmental and animal welfare groups who have convinced politicians, bureaucrats and urban Australians they they are stakeholders in the livestock production industry.

The National Farmers Federation, State farming Organizations and splinter farmers groups like Lifesource and the Australian Beef Association do not have the money or the staff to wage a counter campaign against these well funded and focused environmental and animal welfare groups.

Only the MLA does. It is good to see they they have recognized this and if indeed that is the case I fully support the campaign. I think livestock producers across the country would have no objection to their levies money being spent defending their rights to farm against this ever growing array of urban based special interest groups who believe they are stakeholders in livestock production whilst having not one cent of equity.

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Agmates Editor – Steve Truman
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The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has come up with a terrific idea -

The World Wildlife Fund has revealed plans to accredit beef and set up supply agreements so consumers can choose ‘greener’ products.

WWF Australia’s Nick Heath says his group is targeting the world’s largest beef producing nations.

WWF offices in the United States, Brazil and Australia are working hard to try and bring together a world-wide initiative to accredit beef, but it’s early days,” he says

That’s the same Nick Heath and the same WWF that has coerced the QLD Labor government into banning the clearing of regrowth on a million hectares of Prime grazing land.

The same person and group that actually wants the government to expand that ban to cover 22 million hectares of prime QLD grazing land. The same person and organization that is behind the onerous new regulation of farmers in the barrier reef catchment.

Australian cattle producers can be sure of one thing, the only outcome of a WWF sponsored accreditation will be less cattle and less cattle producers.

Now it would have been a terrific idea if perhaps Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) had of thought of it first and been able to have it implemented on beef producers own terms. But hey when you only have  a bit over a $100 million a year in producer levies to fund your operation you can’t be expect them to think of everything.

WWF accrediting beef producers, that would be the foxes in charge of the hen house.

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Thanks to Agmates member Eye On The Outback.

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SE QLD Farmer and Chairman of the Carbon Sense Coalition Viv Forbes writes:

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Viv Forbes

Australian farmers pay livestock levies, research levies, marketing levies and taxes on every product they sell. These support an army of officials supposedly representing their interests, the Meat and Livestock Corporation, the Wool Corporation, CSIRO and the numerous state and federal agriculture departments and politicians.

But not one of these has defended the industry from the obviously fraudulent claim that animal emissions play a significant part in causing global warming.

It does not take even high school science to understand that all animals are part of the natural carbon cycle that uses plants to take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and then uses solar energy to convert this to plant sugars and proteins. The carbon is then taken up by animals that live on plants, and finally returned to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane as these animals exhale, excrete or expire.

Carbon dioxide is a harmless natural plant food. Methane is another harmless natural gas which is oxidised in the atmosphere to carbon dioxide and water. Then whole cycle starts again with no net addition to so-called greenhouse gases.

The phrase ‘ashes to ashes and dust to dust’ expresses more understanding of the carbon cycle than all the failed computerised climate models that rate animal emissions as significant factors in climate change.

Animals and plants have always been cycling carbon dioxide and methane with no long term or permanent effect on climate. The wild herds of mammoths, aurochs, reindeer, wildebeest, zebra, bison, antelope, wild sheep, warthogs, horses, camels, rabbits and kangaroos have just been partially replaced by domesticated cattle, sheep, goats, buffalo and pigs.

All are part of the natural world and none of them have any long term effect on the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

To threaten a carbon tax on animal emissions without recognising an equal credit for the carbon dioxide extracted by them from the atmosphere is shoddy science and shoddy accounting. Surely for all the taxes and levies they pay, farmers can get at least one government scientist, official or carbon accountant willing to state the obvious:

‘Cattle and sheep are as green as grass and trees and should not be penalised by any future carbon tax on their emissions’.

Governments should state this clearly now and stop including animal emissions in their spurious carbon accounting.

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Northern NSW Farmer and Australian Beef Association Chairman , Brad Bellinger [pictured] writes:

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I wish to draw the attention of Australians to the following facts that the Brazilian Government is moving to assist its Beef Processing Industry with a $Aus 800 million loan facility through its State owned bank.

Meanwhile, the US Government is bargaining for a doubling of the US beef EU quotas to give it four times the access that Australian beef producers have, despite the fact that the USA has no National Livestock Identification System (NLIS) or National Vendor Declarations (NVDs).

Contrast this with what the Australian Labor Government is doing to our Beef industry :

• Doubling of AQIS inspection fees to increase to full cost recovery

• Forcing producers to pay the highest levies at $5 per head of cattle sold to the Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA),

• Paying for the most costly ID systems in the World

• The proposed Emissions Trading Scheme that will charge farmers for bovine methane emissions,

• The proposed Carbon Emission Trading Scheme directed at the processing Industry, which will be passed back to the cattle producers as soon as the scheme commences.

• The Queensland Labor Party, using vegetation regulation in banning re-growth clearing which will effectively remove the beef industry in QLD.
  

Despite the afore mentioned Government regulations, Australian producers receive the second lowest prices in the developed world and sees Australian consumers pay some of the highest prices for beef in the World.

Australian cattle producers are now receiving 27% of the consumer dollar, whilst the UK producers are on 50% and US producers on 47%.

Two thirds of the Australian land mass – the western side of a line from Adelaide to Townsville, now has only one (dysfunctional) export abattoir (it once had 8).

The big producer operators – the AA Company, Consolidated Pastoral Company, Georgiana Pastoral Company and Great Southern are all selling or trying to sell.

As returns from the mining industry continue to fall, one would have thought that export income from the beef industry was vital to help stem our burgeoning overseas debt.

Governments thinking must be on another planet – the brainless bureaucrats and mindless politicians responsible for this increasing sellout need re -educating in Brazil or the USA.

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Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) released figures yesterday that Australia had exported a record tonnage for 2008 .

Exports for the past calendar year reached 957,479 tonne swt – up 2% from 2007 (941,400 tonnes swt) and surpassing the previous record high of 953,932 tonnes swt set in 2006 (Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry – DAFF)

The jump in shipments commenced in April, with increased supplies (after a low March quarter) and surge in demand from Russia.

The 30-40% decline in the A$ over the second half of the year proved to be a mixed blessing. It reduced the relative prices of Australian beef to key export markets but, together with the global financial crisis and deteriorating economic conditions, also disrupted trade.

Japan easily maintained its place as Australia’s largest beef export market in 2008, with exports falling 4% year-on-year, to 364,302 tonnes swt. Whilst exports for 2008 remained 10% below the record volume of 405,794 tonnes swt in 2006, it was still a very strong result given the low grainfed beef supply, higher A$ during the first half of the year and increased competition from the US later in the year.

Given the significant decline in the number of cattle on feed in Australia during 2008, grainfed shipments to Japan for 2008 declined 13% year-on-year, to 149,183 tonnes swt, making up 41% of total shipments – the lowest grainfed percentage since 2003.

Exports to the US for 2008 totalled 234,779 tonnes swt, down 23% year-on-year and the lowest level since 1997.

Exports to the US were very sluggish for the first nine-months of the year, falling 34% year-on-year, influenced by a stronger A$ and increased exports to Russia. However, the final three months of the year saw a sharp turnaround in exports to the US, as the fall in the A$ assisted a 23% jump in exports.

Increased competition from US beef in Korea during the second half of 2008 contributed to a 15% decline in Australian exports for the calendar year, to 127,207 tonnes swt. Australian beef and veal exports to Taiwan also declined 7% year-on-year, to 27,098 tonnes swt.

2008 saw Russia emerge as Australia’s fourth largest beef market, with the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS – almost all to Russia), taking a record 72,035 tonnes swt. This was despite shipments almost ceasing over the final few months of 2008, due to payment and credit issues stemming from the global financial crisis.

A sharp fall in competition from Brazil was largely behind the surge in demand from Russia, South East Asia and the European Union in 2008. Shipments to Indonesia (33,019 tonnes swt), the Philippines (14,143 tonnes swt), Singapore (8,061 tonnes swt) and Malaysia (6,183 tonnes swt) increased 23%, 314%, 46% and 87%, respectively. Similarly, exports to European Union doubled in 2008, to a record 11,863 tonnes swt.

Source MLA.

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See it first on Agmates. The MLA’s annual Sam Kekovich Australia Day Lamb TV ads due to start screening on Australia TV this Sunday.

This is hilarious and a great promotion. Well done MLA.

In his much anticipated Australia Day address to the nation Sam empties both barrels at the unAustralian behaviour of “bottom feeding, billionaire bankers”.

“We need to return to the egalitarian values that made Australia great, embodied in our national dish: the barbecued lamb chop,” Sam says.

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NSW farmer and Studmaster John Niven [pictured] writes:

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I am writing in response to an article by Asa Wahlquist the Australian Newspaper ‘ R&D returns $11 for every $1‘

The claim by the Council of Rural Research and Development  Corporations that $11- is returned for every $1- spent is blatantly incorrect. It is propaganda.

I am the Studmaster of “ Weddin ” Border Leicester sheep  stud,  West of Grenfell NSW. There are 283 Registered Border Leicester studs in  Australia and a few top quality unregistered flocks that have minimal  impact on genetic improvement.

Studmasters use a variety of tools for selection. They include Lambplan and Stockscan and various combination’s of weight recording and visual assessment. There is a liberal exchange of sires between flocks that use some of these tools.

With assistance from the stud book,anybody interested knows what sires are available.

Lambplan, sponsored by Meat and Livestock Australia, is a failed attempt to create a cartel and price gouge ram buyers.

Mesmerizing figures have been attached to rams that would be better off at the abattoirs. Less than 20 % of studs are now listed in Lambplan. Prime lamb producers are being lied to by MLA.

Levy money is not going to studmasters, who provide rams and then have to turn around and fund their own Research and Development. Even more obscene is the Sheep Cooperative Research Centre headed by Dr. John Keniry. It is to receive $111- million over seven years–only to observe and evaluate. Zero input to attempt genetic improvement, that is left to studmasters while they pay levies on stock sold as well.

Measurement should only be one of many tools, as one leading studmaster points out “At the end of the day Mother Nature has the final say”.

The propaganda attached to Lambplan is unbelievable. I use Stockscan and buyers can make what they like of measurement. Results compare more than favourably with other studs.

A few years ago I introduced a Lambplan measured ram and the progeny was a disaster with all lambs culled. Lambplan measured Border Leicester sheep are probably around the average, I have had more success from rams without Lambplan history.

This whole MLA and CRRDC money grab amounts to fraud. There is zero benefit to producers or consumers.

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Margaret Simons is an  award-winning freelance journalist/ author of seven books. Margaret [pictured] writes on the online media The Content Makers:

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Fairfax/Rural Press – Caught Out Again

Rural Press has once again been caught out churning out media releases as if they were real journalism.

Agmates – a trading and news site founded by Steve Truman because of frustration about the “multi-national $14.5 billion dollar Fairfax Media / Rural Press strangle hold over what rural & regional people read & see” has pinged Queensland Country Life for reprinting word-for-word spin from the Meat and Livestock Corporation as though it were genuine journalism.

Agmates says the resulting “article” is really quite misleading, leaving a “warm and fuzzy feeling” about how marketing dollars are being spent, when the truth is that Aussie Beef sales are slumping in the face of US competition.

Read the Agmates post, and the comments, to get an idea of the rural fury about Rural Press.

I rang Queensland Country Life this morning to get some comment, but was told that nobody from editorial will be in until Monday. I’ve left my phone number and email, and If I get any response, I will post it here.

The Agmates site points out that this is not a first offence. The ABC Media Watch program gave Queensland Country Life a shellacking for exactly the same sort of thing last October.

Now, for context, it should be remembered that Agmates is in competition with Rural Press. In fact it represents exactly the kind of new media competition that Rural Press has cause to fear. In the United States, citizen led “hyperlocal” journalism is emerging as a competitor to media organisations that have promised little and delivered less to regional audiences. Remember that Rural Press gave the need to get competitive online as one of the reasons for the merger with Fairfax all those months ago – since when Rural has put a lot of work into its online presence.

Truman claims that Rural Press refused to take advertising from Agmates, but that nevertheless word of mouth saw him collect 4300 subscribers in 12 months. Those behind the site include Liberal Party figure Bruce Flegg and Cattlemen’s Union identity John Carter. I’ve asked Truman for his current audience figures. [UPDATE: See Steve Truman's comment below for a correction of this point. These people have written for the site, they are not "behind" it. Also see Steve's comment for more up to date audience figures.]

Fairfax/Rural Press say a great deal about quality journalism being the thing that will distinguish them from Citizen journalists and bloggers. This doesn’t appear to bode well.

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(Source Crikey – The Content Makers by Margaret Simons)

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Extracted From an Article that appeared in the Grenfell record:

I received an e-mail from a friend in Ireland who had been reading the Irish Farmers Journal – one of the best in the World. He said that the weekly World beef price table had him puzzled. In Euros the dressed weight prices were as follows –

• UK 3.56,
  
• Italy 3.46,
  
• Netherlands 3.35,
  
• Germany 3.30,
  
• France 3.19,
  
• Uruguay 2.51,
  
• US 2.46,
  
• Brazil 1.83,
  
• Australia 1.57
  
• politically price capped Argentina on 1.32.

He finished with –

“I’m not sure what’s going on but it seems odd. How is MSA perceived among beef farmers? It has been held up as a model here.” Odd it is.

Australia sits on the Global Beef Price Ladder just above the bankrupt Argentina and falling fast, despite our low dollar.

We have been told for years that we lead the World with MSA and NLIS. We have continually told in the media that our cattle prices are good. After a 40 cent price drop (from a low base) on a falling dollar, in a month, I am not amused.

Did you know that our cattle prices were so low on a global scale ? The obvious question is why?

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The Indonesian market for Australian beef has expanded to the extent that when live Export cattle and boxed beef exports are combined Indonesia is now our 3rd largest export market.

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Don Heatley [pictured] Chairman of Meat & Livestock Australia’s said:

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“When livestock export and boxed beef export figures are combined Indonesia becomes Australia’s third biggest overseas market for beef, behind Japan and the US and ahead of Korea and Russia.

When you combine live cattle exports and boxed beef exports, not only does Indonesia become Australia’s third largest export destination by volume, it is also the fourth most valuable, worth a combined $440 million in 2007-08.

The pleasing thing about the growth of the Indonesian market is that it is accommodating both live cattle and boxed beef. Both forms of trade are growing at impressive rates and this is a great thing for Australia’s cattle producers.”

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