Month: January 2016

While Australian meat producers have a lot to celebrate on Australia Day the nation’s dairy farmers see it in a different light

Australia Day 2011 marks the launch of the Milk Price Wars in this country.

Poor old Australia Day too often in the news for all the wrong reasons. Its fascinating that a corporate  founded by a farmer group would pick Australia Day to launch the Milk Price Wars.

Today I will be talking to the experts for a 2016 reflection on this dark day for Australian dairy cows – the day Coles undervalued their true worth to the health of the nation

To get the ball rolling here is a report on the state of play for dairy farmers in NSW in 2014/15 gleaned through the NSW Dairy Farm Monitor project

There is no denying the first few years where tough and there were a number of exits from the industry

Our dairy farmers are a tough bunch and they love what they do and there are some good news stories as this report shows

You can read the full report here 

Key points:

• In 2014/15 milk price reached an average of $7.46/kg MS (54 c/l), on the back of strong competition for milk to meet the demands of the NSW and southern Queensland liquid milk market. This is the highest milk price received in the four years of the project.
• Favourable seasonal conditions and above average rainfall meant that farms consumed more home grown feed and increased their fodder reserves during the year.
• Farm profitability significantly improved this year compared to 2013/14. The average earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) was $1.32/kg MS (10 c/l), which was a 48% improvement on the previous year.
• This year there was a marked difference in profit between the farmers in the two groups.

North:

• Across the North, most farms experienced dry conditions in spring, with wet conditions in autumn resulting in above average rainfall for the year. Milk prices rose by 6% to $7.62 /kg MS (55 c/l).
• The average cost of production was very similar to the year before, at $7.79 / kg MS for the North, leading to better overall profit than the previous year.
• Farms fed a little more purchased feed per cow but paid less for it, with concentrates reaching $434 per tonne of dry matter (t DM) on average for 2014/15.
• Average whole farm earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) were $120,427 per farm compared to $67,137 in 2013/14. Average return on assets also rose from 0.8% in 2013/14 to 1.9% in 2014/15.

South

• Most of the South region experienced reasonably good seasonal conditions throughout 2014/15, with close to or above average rainfall throughout the year.
• Milk prices increased by around 2% over the previous year to $7.28/kg MS. Cost of production decreased in 2014/15, to $6.11/kg MS, with lower prices for purchased feed.
• Average EBIT per farm was $434,843 per farm this year, up 50% on the previous year. Average return on assets increased to 5.3%, from 4.8% in 2013/14.

Farmer confidence

Following better than average profits in 2014/15, intentions for increasing milk production next year were strongly positive across both regions.

Labour issues including succession planning, along with seasonal conditions and input costs were the top three issues identified by farmers over the next 12 months. Over the longer term the key issues for farmers are competing land uses including urban encroachment, mining and gas explorations, access to affordable land for expansion; and upgrading aging farm infrastructure.

And what was happening in Victoria – mmh we certainly dont have a one size fits all   See full report here

2014/15 Victorian Dairy Farm Monitor Project

Key points

Almost all farms (97%) recorded positive results in 2014/15.

• Whole farm earnings before interest and tax (EBIT) was positive on average, but 34% lower than last year.

• Return on assets under management decreased to 5.3% from 8.5% last year. The 2013/14 year was exceptional on many levels and this needs to be kept in mind when looking at this year’s results.

• The decrease in milk price was the primary driver behind the reduction in profitability this year.

• The milk price fell 11% from $6.77/kg milk solids in 2013/14 to $6.04/kg milk solids this year.

• The impact of lower milk price combined with challenging seasonal conditions was reduced due to higher milk solids sold per hectare and per cow and slightly lower variable and overhead costs.

• Variable weather conditions across the state provided between 71% and 95% of average long term rainfall.

• Farmer expectations were variable but a large proportion believed operating conditions would  be stable or deteriorate for the 2015/16 season.

• The greatest challenges are still managing climatic variability, sourcing labour and managing the uncertainty of milk price.

BeefJam – a great example of Creative Pragmatism from the Youth Food Movement and Target 100 

In agriculture farmers talk a lot about how we need to EDUCATE the public about agriculture but I am yet to come across a large united cohort of farmers who can enunciate how we can effectively deliver their vision of an EDUCATED public

There are some farmers equally adamant that the only people with the ability to EDUCATE the public is farmers with 24/7 365 dirt under their fingernails. The same people who then say I work 24/7 365 and use that as the justification for their inability to have time to EDUCATE the public

Believe it or not too few 24/7 365 farmers pick up the oxymoron here. And worse still the very brave people who do manage to find the time never seem to please the squeaky wheels.

Despite these barriers there is a plethora of superb individuals, some industry bodies and some initiatives doing their bit and doing it brilliantly on a shoestring budget

I just happen to run a couple of those initiatives both of which were externally evaluated in 2015 and I couldn’t be more proud of what they are achieving on behalf of agriculture and I look forward to sharing those reports shortly

It’s always important to give credit where credit is due. Target 100 was a watershed program in Australia agriculture. When it was launched it was seen as visionary and it had a budget the Target 100 team could actually kick big goals with. Like most things in agriculture industry bodies are like farmers when the budget decisions are made.

The options all revolve around one OR the other. The ability to do one PLUS two PLUS three are few and far between and depend on the whims of the government and industry board members at budget decision time.  In the last two years Target 100 has found itself trying to deliver fillet steak outcomes on an offal budget

This takes a great deal of creativity and I am delighted to be able to share one of those highly creative moments with you.  BeefJam  was a partnership between Target 100 and the Youth Food Movement. It involved bringing young producers and young consumers together

BeefJam is a 3-day event that takes young producers and consumers on a crash course of the Australian beef supply chain and gives them 48hrs to reshape the way we grow, buy and eat our red meat.

Rural political journalist Colin Bettles recently lamented that unlike our American counterparts, Australian farmers are yet to grasp the pivotal role advocacy beyond the farmgate plays in delivering economic success behind it

Was BeefJam as wise spend of very limited farmer levy dollars? Should the money have gone into R&D in preference to advocacy?.  Well here is your chance to cast a vote for advocacy.  This blog post on the Youth Food Movement website is a very interesting example of what happens when you do advocacy well

Behind the scenes  at an Australian Abattoir –  I hope you enjoy reading one NON-FARMER consumer’s viewpoint as much as I did.

Please NOTE I was not involved in BeefJam and I have NEVER visited an abattoir and below is THEA’s reflection on her visit to the abattoir as part of her BeefJam experience

We humans like to outsource the things that give us the creeps. Funeral parlours, sewerage systems, landfills, abattoirs, these places are all part of the scaffolding for the modern Australian lifestyle but we’ve somehow collectively agreed that life is less of a downer when we can tuck them out of sight from our daily commutes.

Death and rubbish are uncomfortable. They make us ask big questions about the way we live, demand that we look at the impact of our decisions to live a certain way, and question whether we’re ok taking the – more often than not, mindless – path we’re on. Few things trump the discomfort of being asked to challenge your preconceived ideas about How Our System Works and your own role in that system.

Several months ago, I was part of a crew of young people who took a tour of an Australian abattoir (or cattle processor) – a little outside of Toowoomba in Queensland’s Darling Downs region. We were there as part of a collaborative project called BeefJam launched by Youth Food Movement Australia and Target 100, an initiative of Australian cattle and sheep farmers to talk to the community about the red meat industry and sustainability.

I had the opportunity to see one of those places that we tend not to think about whenever we bite into a pulled pork whatever on a Friday night out. And before you ask the question, five months later, yes, I still eat meat, though it’s my own choice to not eat very much of it, and yes, I still picture the abattoir every time that I do.

To be clear, this visit wasn’t about shying away from the widely acknowledged and serious challenges of meat production (detailed, albeit very differently, by the likes of Target 100 and Meat Free Week). But rather than disengage with meat altogether, it was about confronting meat in our own backyard and the grey areas that exist around an issue that can become so black and white.

I came out of the experience hungry to talk about what I’d seen, as did my fellow team mates, and these points more or less encapsulate that:

WHAT WE SAW ||

Let’s talk nuts and bolts. You can roughly break down our visit to the abattoir into 4 stages:

STAGE ONE // Arrival

Upon arrival and after being suited up in white pants and jackets – OH&S is serious business in a processor- we were taken to see the cattle who were stored in holding pens outside the processor. Most of the cattle had arrived early that morning from their various farms, and the atmosphere was calm and quiet. The cattle are deliberately kept in conditions as close as possible to those they’re accustomed to in their home farms . As was explained to us, a sudden change in environment can cause undue stress to the animals and also affect the quality of meat they produce.

STAGE TWO // The start and end

The cattle entered the processor through a single door, one by one. Once through the door, which closes after each cow enters and reopens for the next, the cattle are delivered a bolt of compressed air to the head on the knocking block and immediately rendered unconscious. The animal’s body is then cradled down so it is lying on its back with its neck exposed and a single slaughterman, who at the abattoir we went to was also an Imam – an Islamic leader – says a prayer and cuts the animal’s throat (the animals which we saw processed were certified halal).

STAGE THREE // Segmenting

Their bodies are then hung and bled, and begin to move their way along a carcass line, upon which their bodies are segmented into different parts by the many people stationed along the line. Each person on the line has their own highly specialised role – it takes years of training and experience to act in some positions along the line – that they’ll carry out on each carcass. For example, one person is responsible for removing the hooves, another prepares the skin for removal by severing it, and operates the machine that removes it, and someone splits the carcass in half with a large saw.

STAGE FOUR // Packaging

Carcass breakdown begins in the next morning once the carcass is chilled. As the carcass is broken down into smaller pieces as it moves along the line, the meat cuts are separated, portioned out and packaged up in plastic bags and cardboard boxes, ready to be delivered out to butchers, supermarkets and other suppliers or retailers as each order required. In terms of processed meats- that is, meat sold in boxes – Australia exports roughly 70% of its total beef and veal production to over 80 countries. Animal products also go on to be used in making a whole range of non-food products such as leather, soaps, cosmetics, glues, plastics and candles.

HOW I FELT ||

It would be fair to say that for all of us who had never visited an abattoir before – and maybe for some of those in the group who had – visiting an abattoir was a highly intense experience. Seeing an animal as a sentient being outside a building, and then several minutes later seeing that animal move through a highly efficient conveyer system as a carcass, was pretty hard. Purchasing meat from a supermarket often feels like such a sanitised experience, and the contrast between this environment and that, was strong. It was very clean, it was highly professional, and everyone had their role to play. It felt systematic, challenging and big – the bodies were big, the numbers of people were big, the systems were big.

For myself, if anything a self-professed meat sceptic, it was also honestly a relief to see the high levels of professionalism on display, both in the systems at work and from the people who worked there. What would have been most distressing – and what many of us consumers in our group feared – would be seeing signs of animal distress, and also signs of wastage. I saw neither. Whilst not all animals may be privy to such treatment upon slaughter for meat, it felt like this story around how processing can work in Australia, and the stories of the real people who work in processors, are rarely told in Australian food media, and it seems they should be if we’re looking to build greater transparency and trust in our food system, and our local one in particular.

THE IMPACT OF MEETING THE PRODUCERS ||

Visiting a processor in the company of young producers – those who invest their livelihoods in rearing their cattle – had a massive influence on the way us consumers felt about the experience. As any ordinary human, I care a bunch about the humane treatment of animals and based off what I read in the media I was pretty nervous about what I might see. But truth be told, the crew of producers amongst us wanted nothing more than for the animals to be healthy, safe and happy and seeing them respond as positively to the system as they did – and seeing them express their own relief, pride even, in the system they sent their cattle to – really framed my own experience.

Spending time with those who work in the industry broke down stereotypes and made me realise that we lose a huge opportunity to better the system, for consumers, farmers and the environment, when we simply typecast the meat industry as solely a heartless money-driven enterprise. The experience of meeting those people allowed me to understand the immense complexity of the system. While I don’t have to agree with all parts of what’s happening, meeting those guys allowed me to humanise the industry, and better understand my capacity to change it.

TALKING ABOUT IT AFTERWARDS ||

The two weeks following the visit was a festival of abattoir conversations. Drop into conversation that you’ve just been to an abattoir and you’ll either be barraged with questions, or receive awkward stony faced silence from people who don’t really want to know. What surprised me at first was not necessarily what people asked, but my own response to their questions and assumptions. Assumptions which I myself held until two weeks prior.

I found I had low tolerance for those who chose to eat meat whilst judging those who worked in the industry. Many of us who are isolated from production find it easy to think that those who work on an abattoir production line are cold, unemotional or more inherently capable of something that we’re not. This experience smashed that assumption out of the park , and several times I found myself defending those who work in the industry as ordinary people who have simply had a difference experience of the world than theirs.

I also found myself with a sudden desire to write about the experience, a desire matched by my terror at the idea of writing about the topic of meat from the ‘grey zone’ – the place I usually find myself somewhere in between those who advocate vegetarianism and those who advocate meat eating. Meat eating after all is a conversation which tends to polarise in the extreme.

If anything, the experience reminded me of why I believe transparency is so damn important and reinforced my belief that if we’re going to let people make their own decisions about what they eat, then we also need to let them in on the story of how their food is produced – whether it creeps them out or not – and respect their right to make informed food choices based on that accurate information.

For me, I still eat the occasional steak or minced beef lasagne, and when I do, I say a silent thank you to those I know – animal and human – that allow me to do so. For me, I feel better for knowing, albeit roughly, what the process is that got the meat to my plate. While I still sometimes question the ethics of eating animals when I have replacements to hand, I don’t question the humanity of those who work in it. Nor will I stop pushing for transparency around those things that give us the creeps.

Related: Read more in the Beefjam series so far

Back to me and my thoughts.   What a great take home message from one consumer to agriculture sector

Open and honest two way communications are the key to building and maintaining mutual trust and respect

Further Reading

Here is an interesting site set up by an Australian cattle producer for those who want to learn more about Australian Abattoirs 

I always love the Australia Day lamb adds – yes even the Barbie one and yes this year’s is also very clever BUT i don’t think parts of it were smart use of advertising space and this has led to the joke now being on livestock agriculture

Seriously did enough thought go into the ramifications

I wont comment on whether it is a slur on indigenous people.  If it is that would just be a disgrace and unforgivable. See footnote

What I will comment on is its dig at vegans  Does animal livestock agriculture really need to open the door and the opportunity for negative press like this well argued opinion piece in the Canberra Times.

I thought the aim of this add was to sell lamb not create controversy ( but it appears its aim is to do both).  To me its the Murray Goulburn dairy add debacle all over again for the lamb industry.  What is our end game.  Yes we are selling meat but at what cost to our reputation. I thinks its time we got smart. Lets focus on the big picture and in this instance its to sell the product not give anti-livestock agriculture lobbyists oxygen

I think the joke is on us and I for one am not laughing at our foolishness

Footnote

Whilst I wont comment on the concerns from indigenous people because I am too embarrassed that I needed to read this article before I considered these sensitivities I will let Luke Pearson comment and I rather like what he had to say

Australia Day is too political for it to be just a celebration, said Luke Pearson, founder of the IndigenousX Twitter account on which guest posters share their stories and opinions to increase awareness and education on Indigenous life and history.

“That Australia Day ad is funny; Australia invading all those countries … It’s so good I think we should all call it #InvasionDay instead,” he tweeted on Sunday.

“I just thought it was odd that on a day many of us call Invasion Day there’s an ad about Australia invading other countries to bring all those white guys ‘home’,” he said.

“I did notice Sam Kekovich saying he wanted to avoid politics and just celebrate a day where we can all come together as one though, and that is an awesome idea, and I’d love to have a day where we could do that to promote healing and harmony between all of the many peoples who now call these lands their home. It just can’t be on Invasion Day. It’s not a date which epitomises  ‘bringing people together’. It is a date that celebrates invasion and colonialism.” Source 

Last week blogger and legendary mental health advocate Alison Fairleigh wrote a blog lamenting the demise of the rural blogger

Blogging can be very rewarding and people do it for many reasons. The live export debacle in 2010 was the launching pad for many rural bloggers passionate about telling the stories of agriculture that would mean the history of agriculture in Australia was not defined by its worst moments

This week I would like to reflect on why it is relatively easy to start with a bang and so hard to  maintain the rage that ignited the passion in the first place.

Firstly, blogging takes a huge amount of time. I have no problem justifying that time because I find it cathartic and my supporters inspirational . As an advocate for change in the agriculture sector I am heartened that my blog has a significant following. 260 people have signed up to get an email when I write a blog post and my blogs have had more than 400,000 views. They have generated mainstream media stories.  They have allowed me to attract many like-minded people in agriculture, get a clearer picture of the diversity of views in our sector, helped me identify the naysayers and I have even attracted a few “haters” who appear to live and breathe my demise.

I am constantly inspired by Winston Churchill and celebrate my enemies

Secondly Alison is right we do need an eclectic mix of rural bloggers sharing their stories and their opinions

I am a fan of dairy bloggers Milk Maid Marian and Montrose Dairy.   Whilst Marian is maintaining the rage, Graeme hasn’t blogged for over 10 months despite the motivation to get back on the horse . I love quirky stories and Alison Germon writes a blog that often makes me smile.

Ali’s tag line says “Dairy famer, mother, sewer, agvocate, collector of waifs and strays, determined to leave the world in a better place’. Her ‘about page’ shares her inspiration

This blog is my insider’s perspective on the dairy industry and the day-to-day life of a dairy farmer, mother and woman.

If you have any question, opinions or just want to say hello you can leave me a message here or follow me on Twitter.

I would much rather you asked me a question about dairy farming in Australia – the good, the bad and the ugly! – than base your views on things you read in a city newspaper or social media site.

Ali too hasn’t written a blog for a long time ( April 2015).

I also enjoy blogs about farming in harsher environments and enjoy Gus’ musings at  his Wyndham Station’s blog. My favourite blogger is Bessie Thomas. Blogging comes naturally to Bessie as like Marian she comes from the world of media. But even Bessie is struggling to maintain the momentum and hasn’t written a blog since May 2015.

Update from the Verandah is another favourite – a great example of the power of great pictures

I am also a fan of many of our non farmer agriculture advocate supporter blogs.  I love the Flourish Files  but Victoria too has been very quiet in the  space in the last 12 months

So the big question is how do we help our bloggers maintain the rage?

The answer to this question has multiple facets but today I  want to share with you some of the ways non-bloggers can help best support the people who put their hands up to blog ?

And this answer is a simple as remembering ‘everybody needs a hug sometimes’

We don’t need everybody to blog but just imagine what we could achieve if everyone supported our bloggers in some way. Whether that’s sharing their blogs on Facebook or Twitter or feeding them suggestions for great stories or occasionally sending them an email of support.

My blog is being recorded in history by the National Library as are my websites. My stories and my opinions will be a record of my perspective on agriculture’s journey  in my lifetime and I take this very seriously.

At the moment I am blogging prolifically as I am finding agriculture’s naysayers so frustrating and they are pushing my buttons. I am frustrated by the elitism in agriculture that rears its ugly head from time to time. I am frustrated by the people who say you have to be a 24/7 365 dirt under fingernails farmer to know what’s best for agriculture and make others feel unwelcome. Most of all I am furious with the people who undermine our youth and future influencers. Being frustrated is a great thing in my case because pushing my buttons for whatever reason, good and bad, means my blog is here to stay.

How to advocate and support others advocating is a workshop session for our Young Farming Champions and many have risen to the challenge.

Young people in agriculture are Facebook and Instagram fans. Some of the Young Farming Champions have set up Facebook pages to share stories about their careers in ag. Some have set up Facebook pages to share their farm stories and many others promote each other and  other people’s stories

If you follow my blog then what you do is being recorded in history. My blog is ensuring agriculture won’t be defined by my knockers – it will be defined by the wonderful men and women and young people determined to make farming in the 21^st century a success story

I have written a series of blogs over the last fortnight about what I see as the huge waste of energy that is taken up by the irrelevant debate around the apparent definition of the word “farmer”

This one is my special favourite

Some-one ( preferably male from a long heritage of farming) who owns X acres of land and grow Y crops and raises Z livestock. Must live on the farm and have 24/7 365 permanent dirt under their fingernails. Prerequiste must only  talk in public ( and particulary to goverment) about the negatives of being in the farming profession

Source AFR Real farmers don’t wear RM Williams

RESEARCH SAYS: Researchers have found that people view their work in three ways:

1. Job: Your work is a means to an end, a way to support your life outside of work.
2. Career: You focus on success or prestige.  You’re interested in moving upward, raises and titles, and the social standing that comes from the career.
3. Calling: Your work is integral to your life and your identity.  Your career is a form of self-expression and personal fulfillment.

What’s interesting is you can’t predict someone’s viewpoint based on their job title or income.  In almost every profession, from doctor to secretary, a third of workers fall into each category.  The key to feeling your job is a calling is that you consciously express your personality and your values.

Yes Agriculture the research the is backing me up – far too much time is wasted debating who is entitled to wear the hat and the RM’s and the badge of honour.

Lets embrace the ‘concrete cowboys’ the ‘desk jockeys’ the ‘pen pushers’ and anybody else who has a specialty that agriculture so desperately needs

Lets spend our spare time where it counts and that is sharing our values with the people who buy what we produce

Lets put out the Welcome signs #AusAg

Special thanks for Will Marre for putting into context so well and the brilliant piece by Fleur Anderson in Fin Review from August 2013 which I spotted when I went looking for a pix of RM Williams boots and found a better one

Rider

My opinions are my own. They may change over time as I wake up everyday to listen and learn. I value those of the bright minds I chose to surround myself with. I maintain the right to edit my posts from time to time to clarify my opinion where I feel necessary