Category: Uncategorized

As per my previous posts its not the quantity of advocates we have its the quality of advocates we have that will deliver the best outcomes for agriculture

Thanks to the support of an external body we were able to an extensive evaluation in 2015 of both the Young Farming Champions program and The Archibull Prize

These two programs are the cornerstone of the Art4Agriculture advocacy initiative and use young people under 30 in the farming sector to bring the farm into the classroom

The learnings from this report will help ensure investment in agricultural advocacy at a school and community level get the best ROI for the very limited farmer levies available to be directed into this space

I created these programs to do the following

1. Identify and nurture young people in agriculture who are willing and have the capability and capacity to be the face of farming in the community
2. Protect farming’s social licence
3. Create a buzz around careers in the farming sector.

Like me, I hope that farmers everywhere will appreciate what the Young Farming Champions are achieving on our behalf

YFC Laura Bennett and Alexander Stephens visit Calvary Christian College

These young people are very brave-its far from easy putting your hand up for that often very daunting experience: of standing up to be counted, even in difficult circumstances.

They donate considerable time and effort into preparing for, and going into schools and are selfless in their determination to focus on the greater good for agriculture

The schools who put their hand up to participate in The Archibull Prize are also very brave. Its a very high level program and it gets very high level results. 

Primary school teachers are extraordinarily brave because they are expected to work from the secondary school material

I also want to take this opportunity to thank from the bottom of my heart all the wonderful people who support me. This program operates on a shoe string and like me the majority of my support team do it pro bono or at mates rates. This of course is not sustainable and I am very pleased to report that we are talking to a number of corporates who are keen to partner with us

Below you will see the impact the program is having for agriculture, for teachers and the most important people in the world our young people

Extract from The Archibull Prize 2015 evaluation 

The purpose of this report is to determine whether The Archibull Prize Art4Agriculture program has achieved its objectives of using creative arts and multimedia to engage urban and rural school students to:

1. Consider agriculture related careers;
2. Expand their understanding of farming; and
3. Understand the challenges of farming

The findings in this report show that The Archibull Prize successfully achieved these objectives and does far more. It provides schools with an educationally sound and valuable tool for increasing engagement in learning and participation in school and community life. Cohesion within the school community was enhanced through collaboration between Year groups and across key learning areas. Some feeder Primary schools also teamed up with their High Schools. This supports student well-being through improved transitioning to secondary education.

Summary of key findings

This report compares the data from students and teachers as they started their projects and at the end of their learning journeys.

In 2015, The Archibull Prize directly engaged approximately 2,700 urban and rural students from 28 schools. Teachers and students from participating schools provided data about their expectations and experiences through entry and exit surveys. Teams of teachers in each school co-ordinated project-based learning involving a number of key earning areas across multiple Year levels. This effort achieved a significant reach with an additional 16,650 students being indirectly aware of the Archibull taking place in their schools. School communities also became aware of The Archibull Prize through being actively involved in supporting their schools to create their outputs, reporting in school newsletters and local media.

Primary School teachers shared their expertise amongst project tasks and devised age and stage appropriate activities and content so that a number of Year groups or whole of school could participate.

Secondary Schools based their projects from within the Creative Arts KLAs and drew in teachers from other subjects. Other KLAs most involved were Agriculture, Technology, and Science. English, Health and Physical Education, Personal Development and Social Sciences were also involved.

A third of the Secondary Schools partnered with their feeder Primary Schools for some components of the project.

Young Farming Champions (YFC) played an important role in educating students and their teachers about contemporary farming practices and career pathways in agriculture. Student and teacher comments show that this was a highly memorable and significant experience. In educational terms, this equates to strong evidence of emotional and cognitive engagement. Students were impressed in three main ways:

1. Being able to see and/or appreciate the physical aspects of farming;
2. Having admiration for the professionalism, knowledge, work skills and ethic as well as personal passion of each YFC;
3. Gaining insights into farm practices and potential career pathways through hearing the YFC’s story.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

YFC visit Erskine Park High School, James Ruse Ag High School, Gwynneville Public School and Calvary Christian College 

By the end of the competition students were even more positive, in wanting to learn about what farmers do and how food and fibre gets to us; and considering farming or working to produce food or clothes as a good career choice for themselves. Student comments indicated they had gained very positive insights from their meetings with YFC. They were surprised and excited to learn more about farming and very much enjoyed their experiences.

Students and teachers were extremely satisfied with their experiences with their expectations having been met and in many ways exceeded. There is no doubt that students experienced a high degree of enjoyment and that their engagement in learning was significantly enhanced.

Teachers strongly agreed it was a valuable and worthwhile experience that linked well with their school-based curriculum and provided more opportunities for students. They also realised there had been a number of unintended added benefits educationally and socially for students; professionally for teachers; and improvements in whole school cohesion. They described how their students had gained greater appreciation and understanding of farming. The areas of learning that students said they were most excited about related to farming and agricultural processes i.e. what farmers do and the extent to which their products are used (82% of Primary students; 64% of Secondary School students). In this respect, the contact with YFC was considered to be extremely worthwhile.

Students were generous in their comments about what they liked most about learning through doing their Archibull projects. Their perspective is consistent with teacher observations of their learning outcomes. Having a cow (or calf) as a focus of artistic and creative expression was a definite plus in terms of student engagement. The opportunity to develop new skills through an artistic process also excited the students. Students enjoyed learning about biosecurity, sustainability issues or food security.

High school students described the excitement they felt during the creative process from ideas generation to finished product. Social processes and teamwork were important to many students. They enjoyed creatively collaborating with their friends and contributing to a greater result. There is no doubt that using art and multimedia achieves significant leverage in engaging students’ learning about the challenges of farming and agricultural production in Australia.

The teacher ratings of their student’s skill development show a general increase (i.e. from ‘somewhat’ to ‘a lot’) across all areas for all students, both Primary and Secondary School. Benefits were achieved in the areas of,

• self-management
• a range of learning styles
• communication
• using technologies
• initiative and enterprise
• active citizenship
• planning and organising
• teamwork and cooperation
• creative problem solving

Teachers noticed that their students had developed skills in other areas such as,

• Fine motor art and craft e.g. hand sewing, wool swirling / wool craft, fine brush work
• Multimedia, graphic communication and creative arts e.g. music- videos related to beef, ICT technologies- blogging speaking with adults within the community, blogging, research skills, co-operation, interviewing and note taking, uploading images and photo documentation; use of multiple sources and ICT technologies to learn and display their learning. Research and Presentation of professional work
• Leadership and public speaking e.g. when presenting workshops to the Primary school students.
• Literacy and numeracy skills improved, because students were highly engaged in the learning experiences
• General behaviours improved because student had a higher respect for our learning environment

All students’ attitudes to farming and the processes involved in agricultural products increased over the time of the competition. Secondary School students’ attitudinal change was far greater (almost double) than for those in Primary School projects.

Significantly, teachers reported having changed the way they now think about agriculture. They explained what has changed for them in terms of a greater respect for farmers due to first-hand knowledge and experiences. Those who had previously done the competition mentioned having benefited by further expanding their knowledge Their comments indicate deep learning had occurred in order to significantly shift attitudes.

Teachers attitudinal changes related to the following four main themes,

1. Increased understanding of agricultural systems from farm to final product;
2. Revitalisation of passion as an Agriculture specialist teacher;
3. Technology and innovation involved in contemporary farming to increase sustainability;
4. Extension of rural background to a broader understanding of farming.

 

Teachers consistently mentioned the same positive aspects of The Archibull Prize. These related directly to the use of project-based, cross-curricular and Year level approach through a focus on visual arts creative processes. Students were challenged and extended in their ability to interpret researched knowledge and apply graphic communications skills. Teachers were surprised at the high degree of engagement in learning and resultant deep knowledge of students. Their experiences reflect an holistic approach to teaching that fits well with the NSW Quality Teaching model (QT)[1]. This indicates that undertaking The Archibull Prize is pedagogically sound. The following quotes from teachers have been analysed for the elements from the QT framework they represent,

It was an authentic learning experience that encouraged the development of deep knowledge and engaged our students in higher order thinking. Students were able to demonstrate this learning in an inclusive and fun way. (Primary Teacher)

QT Elements: Deep knowledge, Deep understanding, Problematic knowledge, Engagement, Student directed

 (I liked) Watching students collaborate their ideas and socialising with others. (Secondary Teacher)

QT Elements: Substantive communication, Problematic knowledge, Engagement, Students’ self-regulation, Student directed

A broader impact on the whole school community cohesion including parents was noticed. Teachers’ professional capabilities were extended in new ways that included public speaking, cross-faculty collaboration, and undertaking project-based arts and multimedia teaching and learning.

Three main concepts of Climate Change, Biosecurity, and Food Security were an important part of the learning incorporated into The Archibull Prize. The entry and exit surveys asked students whether they had heard of these terms, what they thought they meant, and what actions they could take to mitigate the effects of Climate Change; prevent breaches in biosecurity; and ensure improved food security for Australians.

Awareness of the term ‘Climate Change’ was very high both before and after the competition. Students struggled to explain what it meant despite a significant majority reporting they had discussed it throughout the project. This highlights the complexity of the concept and why the Australian Curriculum builds knowledge on this topic progressively from Primary to Senior Secondary levels. The Archibull Prize is more concerned about giving students and their teachers an appreciation of the impact of Climate Change on the sustainability of farming and agriculture. Through the qualitative data it was evident that this had been achieved. Much of this knowledge had been gained from talking with the YFC.

Secondary students achieved a significant shift in awareness of biosecurity and its importance to Australia’s primary industries as a result of participation in The Archibull Prize i.e. from 38% to 94% knowing about it and 100% choosing the correct definition.

An awareness of food security has significantly increased amongst Secondary students. However, facts about food waste and how many Australians go hungry are still not well known. By comparison to the start of their projects, 10% more Secondary students attempted an explanation of food security i.e. from Entry 74% to Exit 84%

Back to me

Some important  key leanings from the evaluation are

• We can change the community’s attitude to farming
• The correct language to use when we talk to the community needs to be reevaluated. For example we naively thought we could make agriculture more sexy by talking about “food and fibre’ instead of using the word agriculture. Wow how wrong we were . Our work in schools and that of the RAS of NSW shows that what comes to mind when you say the word fibre to the community “its the stuff you have for breakfast to stop you getting constipated”. If we want to reach our audience we should talk about “farming and farming communities”
• If we want to maintain our social licence the survey showed young farmers are our best advocates
• if we want to encourage careers in the farming sector young people with off-farm careers are our best advocates
• Whilst the phrase “Climate change” and the word “sustainability” are very much misunderstood by community you can show farmers commitment to both
• The Archibull Prize is a great vehicle for getting our key messages out and the NSWDPI will be very proud of their involvement in the program. Almost 20,000 people now know “Biosecurity is a shared responsibility” and  they can actually define accurately what ‘biosecurity” is
• Effective advocacy takes time and money – lets spend our limited dollars on where we can get the best bang for our buck

 

 

 

Following the Live Export (LiveEX) ban, the agriculture sector in Australia was re-awakened to the importance of building close working relationships and partnerships of mutual respect with government, the community and corporate sector and NGO’s.  All of which will have individuals or cohorts of individuals who may or may not view the agriculture sector favourably.

It is also recognised that to maintain those relationships and partnerships is going to take a great deal of commitment and diplomacy and transparency. To help achieve this, farmers are widely  encouraged to become advocates for their industries and the farming sector as a whole.

Image source

Effective advocacy delivers two vital roles for farming communities.  The first one is maintaining social licence and the second one is attracting people to careers in the sector.

Supporting advocacy requires time and money.   Time to do it and money to provide the access to experts, training, tools,knowledge, mentors and vehicles that ensure the identified advocates can reach their audience in a way that resonates positively with that audience. In agriculture’s case that audience is everyone (government, the community and NGO’s and the corporate sector)

Social licence is a term unfamiliar to most farmers. I hadn’t heard of it myself until I attended a series of workshops given by Charlie Arnot .

We are very lucky in Australia that the majority of the community have a great deal of respect for farmers and trust them and whilst we (farmers) may think differently, the community has allowed us in the main to self regulate and given us a very generous social licence compared to other professions and sectors.

One area that howeve is quite heavily regulated in agriculture in NSW is biodiversity conservation and native vegetation management and that legislation is currently under review in NSW

Farmers see themselves as custodians of the land and the animals under their care. Like raising children, taking care of animals is intuitive for most people and most people can be trusted to do it well without the need to legislate

Biodiversity conservation and native vegetation management is a very different thing and requires skills and knowledge that are learned. Farmers are experts in production landscapes and natural resources management (NRM) professionals are experts in native landscapes.  To get the best outcomes for food production and maintaining the landscape that sustains us requires a close working relationship between the two and Landcare has certainly been the ground-breaking best practice model to help achieve this.

Farmers know we made a lot of mistakes in the past as this extract from a Landline story  reminds us

European farming methods blamed for soil degradation
Reporter: Maria Taylor
First Published: 9/04/00

Soil degradation in Australia and across the globe is right at the top of serious environmental problems.

It costs Australian farmers $2.5 billion a year in lost production and nobody has even calculated off-farm costs such as salt-polluted rivers or loss of bio-diversity or wildlife habitat.

“Scientists are documenting alarming levels of salinity, soil acidification, wind and water erosion, soil structural decline and loss of fertility, waterlogging, sodicity, non-wetting soils and so on,” scientist Anna Ridley said.

Most of these problems arise from the mismatch between Australian soils, water balance and climate and the traditional European farming and grazing methods.

Australia has achieved amazing agricultural success with methods that worked well in Europe and North America. But along the way farmers ignored the limitations of Australian soils and climate and didn’t appreciate the value of native ecosystems.

Dr Ridley said farmers are learning they may be paying a big price for the vegetation clearance and other dramatic changes that have been made to the landscape.

“After close to 200 years of farming in some areas and as little as 30 years in others, we are seeing a lot of warning signs that all is not well with the soil and water that underpin our agricultural success,” Dr Ridley said.

Farmers who genuinely want the best outcomes for the land that they are custodians of know  best practice biodiversity conservation and native vegetation management is vital

They also know its very time consuming and resource intensive and nothing happens overnight.

Farmers also know that returns in agriculture are highly variable and we often have to make choices we don’t want to. Choices that involve decisions on where those limited returns are spent. In some years far too many farmers find themselves just struggling to feed their families. From memory I think the statistics say that only 10% of farmers run consistently profitable businesses.

We cannot do without agriculture, but the industry must be profitable. By contrast, protecting biodiversity is unlikely to be profit-driven. Can the two ventures be compatible? Source

Australian farmers look after up to 80% of the Australian landscape. But less that 6% of Australia is suitable for crop production. So farmers provide a huge public service and at times ( depending on the government of the time) public good money is used to help farmers conserve biodiversity and manage natural resources.

Our natural resource management mistakes of the past led to extensive regulation and legislation and yes some of it is onerous and not very effective and the review is a good thing

Whilst we are all loathe to admit it legislation and rules and regulation are often put in place to protect us from ourselves.  Farmers have made so many wonderful gains during the 25 years of Landcare. The review gives us the chance to ensure we can continue to do this. It is so important that we do not naively find ourselves being punished for the mistakes of the past by suggesting that we no longer need rules and regulations for managing the landscape.

‘It is critical that all Australians see farmers as part of the solution, not the problem’.

I personally think it would be a folly to go back to a self regulated ethos for natural resource management.  What I believe we need are rules and regulations that are workable. What we need is the necessary resourcing and support networks and access to expertise for our farmers. The review gives us the chance to get it right. I have my fingers crossed we do

Further Reading

This article is from The Conversation – Biodiversity and Farming – Finding Ways to Co-exist 

The UWA Future Farm 2050 Project

Future-proofing Australasia’s unique native animals

Farmers and Mother Nature working in harmony

Great news about farmers and environmentalists partnerships here

Footnote

The opinions expressed in this blog are mine based on my personal experiences

 

 

 

Judging meat quality

I have had some great feedback on my post on Thea from the Youth Food Movement’s blog post of her reflections of her visit to an abattoir

I have never visited an abattoir and it’s not on my wish list and pretty confident it won’t ever be.

I don’t visit third world countries either. In this case it’s because I don’t want to see other people living in poverty. Whenever we needed an animal euthanized on our farm we got an external person into do it. Not an ideal mindset for a farmer perhaps but I can live with it. Kudos to people like Thea who make the effort to see it for themselves and make their own minds up based on personal experiences. Quoting Thea

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.

………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. Source 

With regards to the abattoir process I am absolutely fascinated by the ability of the Intercollegiate Meat Judging Competition to attract people to careers in agriculture

I have just had an external evaluation of The Archibull Prize done to determine whether it had achieved its objectives of using creative arts and multimedia to engage urban and rural school students to:

1. Consider agriculture related careers;
2. Expand their understanding of farming; and
3. Understand the challenges of farming

The report highlighted the power of sending young people from the farming sector into schools to inspire an appreciation of farming and careers in the sector. A lot of our Young Farming Champions too have been part of the  Intercollegiate Meat Judging Competition and are wax lyrical about it. In fact, we had one of  our YFC participate as part of the Australian team at the international finals last December.

Congratulations to the very successful Aussie Intercollegiate Meat judging team. Read more here

According to their website this competition has the following project objectives

Program Objectives

The objective of the Intercollegiate Meat Judging Competition is to provide an opportunity for students to learn and to build the pool of intelligent young meat industry representatives, fired with enthusiasm who will give the Australian meat industry the expertise and drive to compete in the meat quality world of the future.

This is done through:

• Exposing students to the fundamentals of meat quality education.
• Demonstrating to students how and why markets perceive meat quality differently and highlighting the various carcase specifications required by these markets.
• Exposing students to different systems of meat identification and classification
• Providing training and a non-threatening competitive environment to assist students develop confidence and communication skills.
• Providing an opportunity for students to acquire and apply knowledge of practical aspects of meat science.
• Raising students’ awareness of career opportunities that exist in the meat industry.
• Exposing students to the requirements of the end-user (consumer)
• Exposing student to new technologies within the meat industry.

If my experience is anything to go by  the ICMJ competition achieves this in spades. And  if I have got it right the program includes visits to abattoirs. What a great job it is doing of sharing the farm to fork story in a pragmatic way and inspiring a passion for careers in the beef industry and in the case of YFC Dr Steph Fowler (picture below)  it can even inspire a PhD in Meat Science

Dr Steph Fowler – meat scientist

Now here is an interesting site for those who want to learn more about Australian Abattoirs

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My posts on Australian agriculture leadership or lack of have created some very robust conversations. Some people are under the misconception I am suggesting that I am agriculture’s solution to the leadership void

Heaven forbid that is the last thing on my mind.  Whilst I acknowledge I may have been letting the cat into the pigeon house and the goat into the garden and putting the fifth wheel on the car the exciting news is agriculture in 2016 does have a visionary leader.

He meets the 24/7 365 dirt under the fingernails prerequisite, the only thing that may hold him back in some peoples eyes is he is under 40. OMG that some-one so young should be our silver bullet.

His name is James Walker – he hails from the beef state – the home of the feared Maroons.

A bit of background James is the founder of Agrihive

James as far as I am aware is yet to enter agri-politics  –  the question is what is going to entice him to move to the dark side

I will leave this up to the 24/7 365 dirt under the fingernails farmers to work out

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