Thought to have been all but extinguished by the former Federal Labor Government, the embers of the alpine grazing debate are being fanned once again as the Victorian Government tests support for the plan under the recently-elected Federal Coalition Government.

Earlier this year the Victorian Coalition Government and the-then Federal Labor Government locked horns over the former’s plans to allow cattle back into alpine areas, for the purpose of trialing the role grazing can play in reducing fuel loads and mitigating bushfire risks.

The previous State Labor Government had banned livestock from alpine areas in 2005 in response to complaints from environmental groups that cattle were damaging the environment, ending a 180-year tradition of High Country grazing.

When the State Coalition Government attempted to reinstate grazing for the purposes of bushfire mitigation trials last year, the move met vehement opposition from then Federal environment minister Tony Burke, who argued that it would impose an unacceptable impact on endangered species under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.

That position was supported by the Federal Court after the Victorian Government attempted to appeal and overturn Mr Burke’s decision.

That seemed to have put the issue to rest but the Victorian Government has since re-fanned the fires by lodging a new application with the Federal Government to run a three-year trial of cattle grazing in the Wonnangatta Valley, wedged between the Mount Buller ski fields, the Great Dividing Range and the Snowy River.

The push has been strongly backed by the Victorian Farmers Federation, which says the Federal Government should fast-track the reintroduction of alpine grazing to Victoria.
 
The VFF said the proposed trial will see just 60 cattle re-introduced to Wonnangatta Valley, a major downsizing of the Victorian Government’s original and unsuccessful proposal, which was for 400 cattle.

“The issue now lies with the Abbott government,” VFF Omeo Branch President and mountain-cattleman Simon Turner said.

“We are hoping that common sense prevails and that the ecological future of our alpine regions can be protected.

“The former Labor Government’s refusal to revive alpine grazing has damaged the Alps. Not only has it left the area bushfire prone, it has risked wiping out a 200-year-old tradition.

“Since alpine grazing came to an end, fuel loads have reached dangerous levels and valleys have been choked with weeds.

“It’s crucial mountain-cattlemen get their stock back into the region to help manage our Alps.

“The re-introduction of grazing will help re-establish native grasslands in the Wonnangatta Valley.

The Federal Environment Minister Greg Hunt will now have the final decision on whether mountain-cattlemen can return to the high country.

“Let’s hope there is still a future for both the heritage of our cattlemen and the sustainable management of the land,” Mr Turner said.

Can grazing ease blazing?

The issue has proven extremely divisive, pitting not only environmentalists against pastoralists but scientists again scientists.

The debate over whether cattle grazing can play an effective role in mitigating the intensity of bushfires in eucalypt forests has been just as intense as the blazes themselves.

Previous studies including a 2005 report by the Alpine Grazing Taskforce have suggested there is no evidence to show that grazing can reduce the incidence or severity of alpine fires in a statistically significant way, but the Victorian Government has claimed that more research is needed, because previous studies have been too general and have focused on areas that have been too small to provide meaningful or reliable data.

Three environmental scientists from the Universities of Melbourne and Tasmania have added their weight to the debate this week by publishing research that they say demonstrates that cattle grazing does little to reduce Australia’s most destructive bushfires.

Writing about their research on The Conversation yesterday, the scientists said they tried a “natural experiment” to discover whether cattle grazing can reduce blazing.

They surveyed over 11,400 km2 of the Victorian Alps by analysing satellite images of the area and looked at vegetation maps, historical satellite images and studied the extensive areas that have been burned by bushfires in the past eight years since cattle have been banned from the area.

“Using geospatial statistics we found that cattle grazing had no effect on the likelihood of crown scorch in eucalypt forests and woodlands,” the scientists wrote (read their article on The Conversation here).

“This result is biologically plausible given that cattle are grazing animals, not browsing animals - they do not extensively feed on woody vegetation focusing on grasses instead.

“Our study is also consistent with previous ground-based studies that have demonstrated the cattle prefer to graze in grassy areas.”

They said fires in eucalypt forests were usually more intense, driven by high fuel loads on the forest floor, dense forest structure and highly-flammable leaves in the upper canopy.

Such fast-moving forest fires were nearly impossible for fire fighters to control. In comparison, grassland fires were usually much lower in intensity and were easier to control, and grasslands also recovered rapidly after fires.

“Our study does not rule out the use of cattle to manage grassy fuels – this approach may be crucial in tropical savannahs, especially where invasive grasses fuel fires that compromise the ecological integrity of native vegetation.”
 

Banks often cop criticism from their borrowers when they are slow to pass-on the benefit after an official Reserve Bank interest rate adjustment, and export beef processors are currently coming under similar scrutiny, given the recent performance of the Australian dollar.   

As can be seen on Beef Central’s home-page ‘industry dashboard’ graphs, the A$ dipped to a fresh three-month low overnight, falling into the US90’s for the first time since August.

The finance sector says the drivers are falling commodity prices and the prospect of an interest rate cut in the New Year, which is keeping the currency under pressure.

This morning the A$ was trading at US90.7c, down another half-cent from US91.26c yesterday. A month ago, the currency was still at US97.07c, representing a fall of 6.6 percent since then. This time a year ago, the A$ was worth well above US104c.

Yet looking at this week’s meatworks grid price offers relating the southeast Queensland – easily the heaviest concentration of export processing in the country – there has been little-to-no evidence of price adjustment that could be ed to latest currency relief.

Beef Central’s weekly kill report yesterday quoted a 5c/kg rise from one large exporter on cow and steer grids, while others remained unchanged. The company that did adjust its rates said the move was primarily driven by the impact of recent patchy rain starting to shorten cattle supply, not by other factors like currency.

Grid quotes sourced by Beef Central have showed little real change over the past month. One grid this week was up 5c on ox and cow prices, with highest rates of 360c/kg for grassfed 0-2 teeth steer, 355c/kg on a four tooth, 375-390c/kg for MSA grassfed steer, 390c EU steer, and pasturefed heavy cow, 320c.

That’s the best cow money since early this year, before the big slide started as drought pressures gained momentum.

A processing contact from a company with multi-state processing interests told Beef Central yesterday that there was not necessarily much direct relationship between livestock grid prices set by processors and currency movements.

“Supply issues this year have pretty much overwhelmed any currency component,” he said.

“Buyers are obviously well aware of what’s going on in supply. While there has been a drop in the dollar which has been beneficial to processors – there’s no question about that - the big kills that have been witnessed over the past nine months have overwhelmed that.”

“And overseas buyers, seeing those high rates of kill this year, inevitably seek to purchase at a lower price level, simply because of the abundance of product available out of Australia.”

Another factor often raised by staff on the export meat sales desks is the tendency for importers, monitoring the currency movement, to seek to share in that trend, by trying to negotiate a lower price in US$ terms in recognition of the currency effect.

“A lowering in the dollar does not necessarily go straight into the exporter’s pocket. Often it is shared - sometimes substantially, depending on beef supply and demand – with the importer, in the form of a lower price, in US dollar terms,” our contact said.

“But now, we’re coming into a period where supply will be limited, and processors who are keen to pick-up supply, are likely to have to pay a bit more for it.”

Another factor sometimes raised by export processors is the lag effect between cattle purchase and when that beef is sold onto the world stage - sometimes at a currency price that has changed substantially since the cattle were procured. International meat sales being made today in some cases reflect livestock purchases made in late October or early November.

“Unlike a trader, the export processing company is simply selling the product and covering the exchange rate as they sell forward. A trader, on the other hand, might be looking to gain a margin from the currency, but that’s not the case for processor-exporters, because they are not speculators,” our contact said.

As a general comment, the processor said there was no question that the movements in the currency this year had improved returns for export processors.

“They will make no apologies for that, because for the previous two years, the reverse applied, with some very big losses recorded. Producers would like us to share the love when things are going their way, but are not interested when profitability circumstances weigh heavily against the processor,” he said.

“All of us across the industry would love to have a circumstance where we didn’t have these highs and lows, but unfortunately the nature of the business means that they are never likely to go away. There will always be periods when supply outstrips requirements due to drought, which is much to the detriment of producers. Processors are understandably able to take advantage of that, when supply overwhelms capacity to kill.”

“But equally, it can turn the other way. Even when the numbers of slaughter cattle aren’t so great, processors still need to maintain a certain level of throughput to remain efficient, and circumstances start working the other way, having to pay more for cattle than what they are really worth.”

“It’s a cycle, and it’s difficult to see that ever changing.”

Ridley AgriProducts has announced that it will close its Dalby feedmill facility in a ‘strategic decision’ designed to consolidate the company’s Queensland feedmilling and stockfeed operations in Toowoomba and Clifton.

Final production at the Dalby facility will happen in March next year.

In a statement issued yesterday, Ridley AgriProducts managing director Tim Hart said by consolidating the company’s operations, it would be able to provide greater market access to Ridley products, ensuring that the company could meet customer demand in all of its industry sectors.

“Unfortunately, nine Ridley staff at Dalby will be affected and we will work with each staff member to help them work through their options. Staff were advised yesterday of the closure and are receiving strong support from the company,” the statement said.

Mr Hart highlighted the role of Ridley staff at the Dalby site.

“We acknowledge all of the hard work and the commitment of our staff at Dalby and their efforts to support our customers and their community over the years,” he said.

As a division of listed Ridley Corporation, Ridley AgriProducts is a significant supplier of rations and supplements to the eastern Australian beef, dairy, poultry, pork, aquaculture and sheep industries.

The Eastern Young Cattle Indicator has shot up by almost 15c/kg in the space of a week after rainfall breathed new life into northern restocker competition.

Despite a 72 percent increase in the size of the yarding at Roma on Tuesday to 5300 head, prices jumped significantly as restockers, reinvigorated by recent rainfall, added to strong competition from backgrounders and feedlot buyers.

Light weight yearling steers were 14c/kg dearer on average, while prices for medium weight heifers were 6-24c deader depending on the category.

At the conclusion of Tuesday’s markets, the Eastern Young Cattle Indicator (EYCI) had lifted 14.75c for the week to 325.75c/kg cwt.

The indicator rose a further 0.25c yesterday to sit at 326c/kg. It now stands within 5c/kg of year-ago levels, the closest the indicator has come to matching year-on-year levels for the whole of 2013.

Well-known Roma livestock agent Rod Turner from Landmark said recent rain, which included falls of around 25mm south of Roma and 75mm to the north, had been a great ointment for confidence.

While not everyone received rain – and unfortunately some completely missed out altogether – the rain that has fallen and forecasts of more rain ahead has sparked new life back into the store market.

“It was very strong, the job just absolutely fired up here on Tuesday,” Mr Turner told Beef Central this morning.

“Cattle that were making 125c and 130c here a fortnight ago were making 180c.”

Mr Turner said the main buying interest came from local areas such as Wandoan and Taroom, with a few southern restockers joining the bidding as well.

“A lot of blokes are speculating that it might find it very hard to get store cattle from here on,” Mr Turner said.

“The backgrounders and lot feeders are also punching hard to get cattle.”

On Tuesday trade steers lifted 3c on the previous week to settle on 181c, while medium steers also rose 3c, averaging 178c/kg lwt. Heavy steers were up 3c on 186, while medium weight cows remained steady averaging 132c/kg lwt. The feeder steer indicator jumped 8c to average 183c/kg lwt.

In a study released today in Nature Geoscience, we show that extreme weather events in Australia such as drought and bushfire are ed to temperature changes in the Indian Ocean. Much like El Niño in the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean Dipole has far-reaching consequences, and these effects are likely to strengthen under climate change.

What is the Indian Ocean Dipole?

Like El Niño, the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is an interaction between the ocean and atmosphere.

The IOD appears and develops in the Southern Hemisphere winter and matures in spring. In its positive phase, which is the one that interests us most, sea temperatures off the cost of Sumatra and Java are lower than normal. Meanwhile in the western equatorial Indian Ocean, off the coast of Kenya, sea temperatures are warmer.

(The IOD also has a negative phase, but this is much rarer, and its effects much more benign.)

These seemingly small changes in sea temperature have profound effects on the atmosphere. Convection — rising warm, moist air — and rainfall tend to follow the warmest sea temperatures. So changes in sea temperature dramatically alter atmospheric circulation and rainfall distribution.

The result, in the case of the IOD, is extreme weather in many parts of the world, including severe droughts in Indonesia and devastating floods in East African countries.

For Australia, our research confirmed s between this Indian Ocean phenomenon and extreme weather events in southeast Australia, for example, bushfires such as those that occurred on Black Saturday.

During a positive IOD event, south east Australia sees decreased rainfall and increased temperatures. This is because much of the moisture supplying rainfall over south east Australia in winter and spring come from the tropical eastern Indian Ocean. Less rain and clear skies lead to higher temperatures than normal.

More than a statistical fluke

In earlier studies, scientists showed that there are statistical s between the IOD and extreme weather in Australia.

In this new research we’re able to show that these ages are not statistical flukes, and can in fact be predicted by climate models.

And because these events can be simulated by models, we can use these models to find out whether positive IOD events will become more common in a warming world.

We examined 54 climate models and experiments that participated in the International Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report. These model experiments include the historical period up to 2005, and a future period under a high emissions scenario. These experiments provide a large number of samples with thousands of years of virtual climate, which allows us to distill climate change signals.

How might the IOD change in the future?

Over the past 50 years, the IOD index (how we measure the difference in sea temperatures between the western and eastern Indian Ocean) has been trending upwards. Climate models suggest it will continue to do so over the next 100 years.

This predicts a drying trend over south east Australia, and more IOD events compared to the present climate.

In a warming world, the eastern Indian Ocean warms less than the west, and tropical rainfall and moisture move away from the eastern Indian Ocean, resembling a positive IOD event.

This slow warming pattern will lead to more frequent IOD events, and the associated dry conditions will be more intense, compared with the present-day climate. The bottom line is that the rain is moving away from Australia.

What does this mean for Australia?

Our major bushfires in summer have been ed with a positive IOD in winter and spring, and therefore the IOD offers a way of predicting summer bushfire conditions. This research enables us to better anticipate drought and increased bushfire risk.

This is because we have some four to six months of lead time before the fire season. An IOD in winter and spring is a warning sign of higher than normal fire risks in the upcoming summer.

In future climate, a decline in spring rainfall and a rise in temperature induced by an IOD event, exacerbated by a long-term drying trend in a warming climate, will greatly increase the risk of major bushfires.

The implications are of course far broader than Australia. The IOD has, to date, preconditioned wildfires in Indonesia, caused coral reef death across western Sumatra, and exacerbated malaria outbreaks in East Africa. We expect these extreme events to become more intense in the future.

Wenju Cai received funding from Australian Climate Change Science Programme and the Goyder Research Institute.

This article was originally published at The Conversation. Read the original article.

An extra 6500 tonnes of molasses has been made available to Queensland beef producers struggling with drought.

Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Minister John McVeigh said the molasses was destined for export, but was diverted after talks between his office, AgForce and the Australian Sugar Milling Council.

“Molasses is a by-product of sugar milling and is valued by beef producers as a high-energy supplementary feed to enhance less palatable feed in dry conditions,” Mr McVeigh said.

“Currently, more than 60 per cent of Queensland is drought-declared, and molasses is an important part of the emergency feed rations being used by producers.

“Through our discussions with various industry representatives, we’ve been able to keep this shipment of molasses here to assist our drought-affected producers.

“Agriculture is one of the key pillars of our Queensland economy and this is another way in which the Newman Government is helping our producers in drought.

“The molasses will be sold through existing supply channels and I urge producers to continue to discuss their ongoing molasses needs with their local suppliers.”

DAFF is running a series of workshops across the state to help producers deal with difficult decisions relating to stock in the current circumstances.

For further details on the workshops, or any other information and support, beef producers should contact the department on 13 25 23.

Source: QDAFF

With little more than three weeks left to Christmas, attention is starting to focus on gift ideas, and ABC books has no shortage of publications of particular interest to people in the bush, or involved more generally in the cattle industry.

Two great examples, both carry magnificent photographic illustrations, are ‘Black Caviar’ and ‘Green Desert:  the many and spectacular faces of Lake Eyre’.

The illustrated edition of Gerard Whateley’s acclaimed bestseller, ‘Black Caviar’ includes more than 160 original colour photographs, many previously unseen.

This is the complete story behind Australian turf’s most glorious statistic: 25 starts for 25 wins.  Revered for her unparalleled speed, perfectly complemented by a champion’s heart and courage, Black Caviar has returned Australian racing to its glory days and secured a reputation that will echo for as long as horses are sent out to race.

The latest edition includes three new chapters documenting a magnificent sporting comeback and the emotional events leading to Black Caviar’s shock retirement.

Black Caviar has a strong connection with the bush, as her trainer Peter Moody spent the earlier part of his training career at Wyandra, half-way between Cunnamulla and Charleville.

With exclusive access to those at the heart of the events and written by acclaimed journalist and broadcaster, Gerard Whateley, ‘Black Caviar’ documents the career of the racehorse which transcended the track to become an Australian icon.

Gerard Whateley began his career in journalism with the Herald Sun. Synonymous with the ABC for more than a decade, he spearheads the Melbourne end of ABC Grandstand. He was recently awarded Radio Broadcaster of the Year at the 2013 AFL Media Awards and has called 18 of Black Caviar’s 25 wins.

The Green Desert: The many spectacular faces of Lake Eyre

For the last five years award-winning Sydney photographer Peter Elfes has been travelling to the Lake Eyre region, documenting the people, the landscape, the floods, the animals and wildlife.

His spectacular images re-define landscape photography, taking it into the realm of art.

Where others have only found an unchanging Australian desert, Peter's lens reveals the spectrum of colours, the dramas and infinite changes which countless artists and writers have sought to explain.

Accompanied by author and critic Peter Timms’s lyrical text, this is Australia as you've never seen it before, a strange and intoxicating land which occasionally becomes a green desert.

Peter Elfes’s images have been widely published, collected and exhibited. One of them graced the cover of Paul Lockyer’s best-selling book, Lake Eyre.

In 2011 Peter won the NSW Parliamentary Plein Air Photographic prize for his photo, The Green Desert.

Providing the supporting words for Peter’s images was Peter Timms, a former editor of Art Monthly, an author and critic whose books (In Search of Hobart, What’s Wrong with Contemporary Art), and writings have gathered critical acclaim. He lives in Tasmania.

“For some reason I knew the desert had something in store for me,” is just one of Peter’s many inions scattered through the pages of this beautifully presented coffee-table book.

• Black Caviar, published by Harper Collins - retail price: $41.95. Click here to purchase online, in time for Christmas.
• ‘Green Desert, the many and spectacular faces of Lake Eyre’, published by Harper Collins - retail price: $41.95. Click here to purchase online, in time for Christmas.

In a move that has surprised many in the agricultural sector this morning, Federal treasurer Joe Hockey has announced he will to stop the sale of GrainCorp to American-owned Archer Daniels Midland Company.

The issue has emerged as a key early test of the new Coaition Government's attitudes to foreign investment, pitting the business sector and free-marketeers within traditional Liberal Party ranks against the more protectionist stance of its Coalition partner the Nationals.

The Nationals argued that a locally owned GrainCorp was vital for the future of Australia's grain industry, and strongly welcomed Mr Hockey's decision this morning. 

"I understand the difficulty the Treasurer would have had in weighing up all the options that are involved in making a decision like this," Federal agriculture minister and deputy Nationals leader Barnaby Joyce said.

"I believe, and the decision shows, keeping GrainCorp predominantly Australian owned is firmly in our national interest.

"GrainCorp is one of Australia’s greatest agricultural assets, with about 85 per cent of the east coast’s grain storage and handling infrastructure.

"Keeping GrainCorp Australian owned does not mean that foreign investment in agriculture is not welcomed.

"I recognise foreign investment is important for growth and innovation, and contributes to the prosperity of local businesses, rural communities and the broader economy.

"However, it is critical that the Australian Government ensures these investments are not contrary to our national interest and provide flow-on benefits for farmers and rural communities."

Opposition treasury spokesman Chris Bowen has accused Mr Hockey of caving in to the Nationals and making a weak and populist decsion.

“Today Joe Hockey has sent a message to everybody who is thinking of investing in Australia. And that message is, `I'll only tick it off if it passes the popularity test',” he told the media this morning.

`Today, Joe Hockey said Australia is not open for business. The claims by this government that they would lure back investment into Australia lie in tatters this morning because Joe Hockey is too weak a Treasurer to do the right thing by Australia.”

In a media release issued on Wednesday NSW Farmers Grains chair Daniel Cooper urged Mr Hockey and the Foreign Investment Review Board to keep their eyes on firmly on what would bring growth in competition to the Australian grain market. 

While ADM had offered to invest an extra $200 million as a sweetener to improve GrainCorp's grain storage and handling network, including improvements to rain infrastructure, if its bid was supported, Mr Cooper said the deal would have led to reduced competition.

“GrainCorp continues to be the dominant player in the east coast grain market. Its concentration in the market for the storage and handling of grain on the east coast is as high as the two major supermarkets combined and in 2012 it bought almost one third of the east coast crop for its marketing and processing businesses.

“NSW Farmers members are concerned about what will happen to competition for their grain once a large multi-national agribusiness like ADM controls the GrainCorp monopoly.

“While ADM has committed to making an investment in the supply chain if it was to control GrainCorp, its commitment to ensuring that any benefits of this investment flows to farmers falls well short.

“ADM’s representation that mere access to GrainCorp’s upcountry storage and ports leads to competition is shallow.

“Without a true commitment to providing a level playing for all traders to promote real competition for farmers’ grain, farmers will pay for whatever capital investment ADM makes while shareholders on the New York Stock Exchange will take home the benefits."

 

In an address to the Rural Press Club of Queensland in Brisbane yesterday, Australian Farm Institute executive director Mick Keogh argued that Australian agriculture not only needs a brand, but it needs a brand champion Here is an edited version of his address: 

If the pundits are to be believed, Australian agriculture is on the cusp of a boom that will rival the pound-a-pound wool boom of the 1950s. Rapidly growing Asian consumer demand for food, coupled with Australia’s close proximity to Asia has, in the eyes of plenty of commentators and policymakers, put Australian farmers in the box seat to experience a new era of sustained profitability and expansion.

But over the last five years, contrary to the above projections, Australian agriculture’s export performance in Asian markets has been lagging badly, relative to the performance of our major competitors. Australian agriculture has lost market share in all the big five Asian markets – Japan, Korea, China, Indonesia and India. And while Australian agricultural exports to Asia have been growing at around 8% per annum over the past five years, exporters like New Zealand, the USA, Canada and Brazil have experienced annual growth rates in excess of 20% per annum.

A recent trade statistic that really puts Australia’s agricultural export performance in its true context is the fact that Australia’s fruit exports to Asia were worth around $500 million in 2012-13, while Chile’s – a developing nation located on the far side of the Pacific Ocean - were worth $4.3 billion.

Even in Australian domestic markets, Australian produce is being outcompeted by imported products which were valued at $11 billion in 2012-13, equivalent to just under a quarter of the total value of Australian agricultural production.

There are obviously a range of different factors that are behind the insipid export and domestic performance of Australian agriculture;

• The Australian dollar exchange rate has been above $US 90 cents for most of the time since 2007, which makes Australian produce relatively expensive in Asian and Australian markets and reduces prices received by Australian farmers;

• Australia is now one of the highest cost nations on earth, with labour costs in particular very high, making many businesses that rely heavily on labour – such as horticulture - internationally uncompetitive.

• Australian agricultural businesses operate in some of the most variable climatic conditions on earth, and there are very real limits to the availability of resources such as land and water.

• Agricultural productivity rates have slowed markedly in Australia since about 1997, meaning that output growth arising from productivity improvements has been limited.

• Negative media coverage and the resulting poor community perceptions of agriculture have had an adverse impact on both domestic and export markets and affected agricultural investment. The performance of the ABC in particular on livestock exports and more recently the Indonesian spying case have not helped the agriculture sector, despite the extremely valuable efforts of the ABC Rural division.

• The sheer scale of Asian markets means Australia will never be able to supply a large share of the extra demand. To give this some perspective, in the next twelve months China will import almost $US150 billion worth of agricultural products, while the total value of Australian agricultural production in 2012-13 was estimated to be around $US 45 billion.

• The Australian retail food market is dominated by two major supermarkets, which have squeezed most of the profitability out of the food processing sector which would normally be expected to compete strongly in domestic markets and provide a platform for export growth. The result has been a lack of offshore investment or expansion by Australian food companies (in fact the reverse has been occurring). In addition, Australia’s food processors have lost market share in Australia and processed food exports have experienced virtually no  growth over the past few years,

• Australia has had a singular lack of success in negotiating trade agreements with Asian trading partners, while competitors have concluded such agreements long ago and are enjoying significant tariff and trade access advantages relative to Australian exporters.

• In contrast to many of our competitors including New Zealand, Australia has a disjointed, State-by-State and commodity by commodity approach to trying to secure better trade access and to promote Australian agricultural products.

• Last but not least, there is an incredible level of complacency amongst policymakers and the sector more generally that stems from Australia’s proximity to Asia. This is completely unwarranted given the realities of international shipping and transport costs, but seems to doggedly persist in the minds of many.

How can or should Australian agriculture address some of these issues, and take more advantage of the undoubted boom in food consumption that is occurring right across Asia, as well as better securing the loyalty of Australian domestic consumers?

Some of the above factors cannot be easily addressed, or can only be addressed by individual businesses, or in the case of trade agreements the Australian government.

But there are some collective actions that can be taken that would deliver benefits to all involved in the sector, and among these is the development of a ‘brand image’ for Australia agriculture, similar to what has already been developed by New Zealand, Canada and the USA.

A starting point should be a reality check and a stocktake of what Australian agriculture has to offer Asian and Australian consumers. First and foremost should be the recognition that Australian agriculture will never be a big player in Asia, simply due to the fact that Australia does not have the capacity or the volume of production. Secondly, Australia is a relatively high cost agricultural producer and exporter, and will struggle to compete on price alone with other many other suppliers in undifferentiated bulk commodity markets.

This means that it is critically important that as much as possible of Australia’s agricultural produce is positioned at the premium end of Asian and Australian food markets, which are markets in which a product’s quality and freshness are valued, and credence characteristics also become more important.

• Australian agriculture does have some characteristics that mesh well with what are understood to be the desires and values of fussy, middle and upper-class Asian and Australian consumers. These include;

• Australian farmers are able to produce very high and consistent quality products,

• Australia has extremely high food safety and biosecurity standards,

• Australia has world-leading product traceability systems,

• Australia has very efficient logistics and transport systems that enable products to be delivered that are very fresh and retain their nutritional qualities.

• Australian agriculture has very strong sustainability credentials, including some of the most water-efficient crop production systems in the world.

• Australian cropping and livestock systems are very ‘natural’ production systems with relatively low levels of pesticide and fertiliser use compared to most international competitors.

• Australia has very high standards of farm worker welfare and safety compared to virtually any other agriculture sector worldwide.

• Australian agricultural production is largely sourced from family farming businesses, rather than large corporations and factory farms, and,

• The Australian agricultural sector receives the lowest level of taxpayer support of any national agricultural sector worldwide, and therefore represents extremely good value for Australian taxpayers and consumers.

These could form the basis of a strong national brand image that encompasses all these characteristics and wraps them up in a set of values that would be attractive to consumers in Asia and in Australia. In fact, there is already a very strong indication of the value of the Australian agriculture brand given that Australia’s two major supermarkets shamelessly exploit many of these values in their advertising and utilise them to promote their own corporate brand as if they were Australian farmers.

There is a need for some caution, however. The real value of a brand lies in the relationship that it creates between the producer and the consumer. To be successful it has to be a vehicle for two way communication that involves an understanding of consumer wants and desires, and identifies ways that characteristics of Australian farming satisfy those. It is definitely not just Australian farmers telling their story. And it is certainly not just an “Australian Made” sticker added to a product label. The contrast between the “100% Pure” brand that has been developed by New Zealand over the last fourteen years, and the Australian Made sticker highlights this difference very starkly.

Developing a brand that encompasses the characteristics of Australian agriculture and meets the wants and desires of consumers in Australia and internationally will not be a simple task. It will require resources and commitment, and it should surprise no-one that both are hard to come by. That does not mean the task is impossible, though.

Australian State Governments all have trade facilitation and promotion activities that they fund, often focused at the state level. Some of this is very valuable activity, but the promotion of a “State” brand in either domestic or international markets seems to be an absolute waste of time and effort. It would be far better to have all these efforts and resources coordinated behind a single national brand. State Ministers and their mates could still go on overseas trade missions, but would no longer face the embarrassment of trying to explain to Chinese businessmen where Victoria or Queensland are, and then to have to explain that the products are actually from Australia when it comes to issues like trade regulations and quarantine standards.

In a similar vein, the various Rural Research and Development Corporations that have commodity promotion responsibilities do great work in opening up markets and getting trade access for their specific commodities. For example, the ‘Aussie Beef’ campaign that Meat and Livestock Australia has implemented in Japan and Korea is widely regarded as a successful promotion that brings benefits and premiums for Australian beef. But there is no doubt these efforts would be much more effective if they were all coordinated behind a strong and widely recognised national brand. Again, having some of the promotion resources expended by all these different organisations allocated to a national brand strategy, which all could then utilise and leverage in their activities, seems a much smarter way to work than for each of them to each try and develop a separate brand identity.

A potential added advantage of a strong national brand for agriculture is the assistance it would provide to current and future Australian exporters in Asian markets. This applies in particular to new exporters seeking to gain a foothold in specific markets.  It is often noted that New Zealand exporters promote themselves under the ‘100% Pure” New Zealand brand first and foremost, and use that to leverage the value of their region or specific retail brand.
Australian exporters, by contrast, are said to expend most of their efforts in criticising the products on offer from their fellow Australian exporters and trying to undercut them on price. This is not a successful approach to adopt in higher-value markets.

Austrade has taken up the concept of brand Australia, and is currently engaged in some research work that involves canvassing a wide range of stakeholders and consumers about the concept, and the values that they see as important and identify with Australian agriculture. They will soon be reporting on this to industry, and expanding the work to key Asian markets in the next twelve months. The funding for this work was provided as part of the National Food Plan, but there are no additional funds available to take this work beyond the research stage.

This leads to the need to consider a related issue, which is the current state of advocacy organisations representing the farm and wider agricultural sector in Australia. The National Farmers Federation has served the farming and wider agricultural sector very well over the last thirty years, and is the logical organisation to champion a concept like brand Australia on behalf of the entire agricultural sector. However, a severe lack of resources and rapidly declining budgets means the NFF is not in a position to expend much effort in pursuit of this initiative, let alone to put up any real resources to support it.

This is not the only issue on the national stage which the NFF no longer has sufficient resources to address on behalf of Australian agriculture, and in the judgement of some in the industry, the current NFF and State Farmer Organisation model is no longer sustainable.

The NFF has recently embarked on a process that aims to identify a more sustainable future model, and for the sake of Australian agriculture it is very important that this succeeds. One of the big challenges in this process is the fact that the members of the NFF are the State and Commodity farm groups. Those farmers who choose to be involved (and the proportion is shrinking year by year) join their State-based Farm Organisations, some of which are members of the NFF. Finding a better model for the NFF invariably involves change at the State or Commodity organisation level.

The big risk in this process is that the focus will be on adjusting structures, without really addressing the critical issue, which is the increasing lack of engagement of farmers on the ground in farmer organisations. The Australian Farm Institute recently conducted research into agricultural advocacy in Australia, part of which involved detailed telephone interviews with more than 400 farmers across all states and commodities. What was most striking about the responses from farmers was the very strong view of many that paying membership of a farm organisation did not deliver any value, and hence they were no longer members or had not joined. Yet when those same survey respondents were asked about the future importance of advocacy organisations for agriculture, they all responded that it was very or extremely important that the sector has strong and successful advocacy organisations.

This highlights that while farmers see advocacy organisations as important, farmers don’t see any direct value for themselves and hence many adopt the free-rider approach. The membership offer of farm organisations to potential members obviously needs to be expanded in ways that engage members at the local level. This will need to include direct membership benefits and services that are valued by members, and not available to non-members.

This is the approach taken by farm organisations internationally, and in fact it is striking that, almost without exception, the main selling point of membership for most farmers is the direct benefits that are available. The work organisations do to advocate on behalf of farmers is seen as an added bonus, but not the main attraction. This implies a pretty major cultural change for Australian farm organisations in order to start to grow the membership base, and in that way create the resources needed for a strong National Farmers Federation that can successfully champion Australian agriculture.

Part of that role will hopefully involve becoming the key driver of sustained effort to promote the merits of Australian agriculture via a strong and successful national brand strategy. In the absence of that, it is hard to see Australian farmers capturing a reasonable share of the potential benefits that the Asian food boom offers.

* Mick Keogh is the executive director of the Australian Farm Institute, a research institute established in 2003 to conduct research into public policy issues impacting on the Australian agricultural sector, and to promote solutions that maximise the profitability and sustainability of the sector.

Beef Central subscribers are invited to enter a draw to win one of five free copies of Harper Collins/ABC Books’ new, magnificently illustrated titles, ‘Black Caviar’ or ‘Green Desert - the many and spectacular faces of Lake Eyre’.

Both titles would make an ideal Christmas present for any stakeholder living and working within the Australian cattle industry. Click here to view this morning’s review of both titles.  

Entries close in a week’s time – that’s close of business, Thursday, December 5. Winners will be notified by return email, and will be published in an item on Beef Central next Friday, December 6.

To enter the draw to receive a free copy of ‘Black Caviar’, simply send an email including your name to cath@beefcentral.com

To enter the draw to receive a free copy of ‘Green Desert - the many and spectacular faces of Lake Eyre’, simply send an email including your name to admin@beefcentral.com

Gilberts Transport at Toowoomba is a prime example of a livestock transporting company that has grown not only with its clients, but more specifically, with an entire industry.

For the past 20 years the company has specialised in servicing the large and growing feedlot industry on Queensland's Darling Downs.

Company founder and major shareholder Peter Gilbert purchased his first cattle truck in Toowoomba in 1968, a Commer with a Perkins 6354 engine.

Five years later he sold his trucking business to work for Tancred Brothers, embarking on a career that saw him work across three states as a livestock buyer before managing Wainui Feedlot near Dalby, after its acquisition by Tancred Brothers as part of its purchase of Australian Estates/CSR.

Mr Gilbert's return to the livestock transporting industry was triggered when he bought a truck while at Wainui to assist with carting of feedlot cattle.

“That was when the feedlot industry was just in its infancy, and the business has basically evolved from there,” he said.

“As the feedlots have grown we’ve grown with them.”

Gilberts Transport operates out of Toowoomba and specialises in carrying store cattle into feedlots and finished cattle from feedlots to meatworks. The company also handles some grass-finished cattle, but its core business is feedlots.

“We pride ourselves in the service that we give,” Mr Gilbert explained. “We run good equipment and provide good service and we’ve got good employees, which is very important when your carting fat cattle, you’ve got to have good operators.”

• Click here to return to Top 25 Livestock Transporters table.

Gilberts Transport

Peter Gilbert 

430-438 Boundary Street
Toowoomba QLD 4350

Ph (07) 4634 9211 
Fax (07) 4634 9311 f

PO Box 9270
Wilsonton QLD 4350

Email: admin@giltrans.com.au

Patriarch Kelvin Boyle started Boyle’s Livestock Transport in 1957, using his father’s Ford body truck to transport livestock around Victoria’s Western Districts for local farmers.

The business grew to two double-deck semi-trailers in the 1980s, and as sons Rodney and Anthony joined the business, was running four trucks including two B-doubles by 2002.

Over the years, Boyle’s has bought several smaller livestock transport businesses to extend its footprint, the most recent being the Lyndon Manor Transport operations in Pakenham.

Earlier purchases included another local company T & P Smith from Hawkesdale in 2002, when it doubled capacity to eight trucks, and then in 2004 purchased another three from Hayes Transport Services in Colac.

Today Boyle’s operates a fleet of 12 prime movers out of its depot at Mepunga, near Warrnambool in south west Victoria, concentrating primarily on saleyard and abattoir work across Victoria and the southern NSW Riverina, and stretching across into meatworks and saleyards work in South Australia.

The company operates mostly Kenworth prime movers powered by Cummins engines. Having basically the same running gear throughout the fleet means Boyle’s is better equipped with spare parts inventory to handle maintenance and repairs on all vehicles. The fleet workshop at Mepunga includes three staff.

All trucks are fitted with air-conditioned sleeper cabs to ensure drivers get the best opportunity to rest, on longer runs.

Most of the trucks are run as B-double cattle trailer configurations, all on air-bag suspension and equipped with hydraulic ramps, internal lighting, non-bruise sides and the option of both big and short penning, depending on customer and load requirements.

Some of Boyle’s big clients include Midfield Meats, one of Victoria’s largest processors, and Ralph Meat Co at Seymour, processing about 400 head per shift, with which Boyles has had a close alignment for 40 years.

The company’s website says it is trialling a new hydrogen injection system on its engines. If successful, it could increase fuel economy by 10pc and decrease our emissions output by up to 50pc, saving money and helping the environment, the website says.

In 2007 Boyle’s won the Melbourne Age / D&B Victorian rural business of the year award for business management. Kelvin Boyle was inducted into the transport industry Hall of Fame in Alice Springs in August 2010.

• Click here to return to Top 25 Livestock Transporters table.

Boyle’s Livestock Transport, 281 Reas Rd, Mepunga, VIC

Operations Manager Anthony Boyle

Mob 0408 526 923

Ph 03 5566 3267

Email: office @boyleslivestock.com.au

Website: www.boyleslivestock.com.au

A ‘hands-on’ approach to business has been a trademark of the Jenkin family’s 60-year involvement in the South Australian livestock transporting industry, an association that continues with the family’s third-generation today.

Ira Jenkin established Calomba Transport as a general and livestock carting business in the South Australian town of the same name north of Adelaide in the 1950s.

Under his son and current managing director Robert Jenkin, Calomba has evolved into a specialised livestock transporting business over the past 30 years, now running a fleet of eight prime movers with the trailer capacity to uplift 40 decks of cattle at any one time.

The bulk of Calomba’s work is focused on carting cattle from northern pastoral stations to saleyards, feedlots and meatworks within South Australia, but it also handles jobs right across the eastern half of Australia.

Robert and Ginette’s son Roger has worked in the business for the past 10 years, something he never doubted he would do.

“I was brought up in the business, and really as soon as I could get a license I jumped in a truck and never looked back,” the 28 year old said.

Roger said that as the business had grown the family had always maintained a hands-on approach, which was essential to maintaining strong relationships with customers, overseeing driver training and keeping in touch with issues at business level.

“We still play a big part in driving and doing the job ourselves, we don’t just sit back in the office and try and organise,” he said.

“I think that is one thing we do differently, we watch and make sure everything is done right, and that is probably something we can do that the bigger companies can’t.”

• Click here to return to Top 25 Livestock Transporters table.

Calomba Transport

1 Shannon Road

Calomba, South Australia, 5501

Ginette Jenkin: (08) 8527 2397

Robert Jenkin: 0418 805 282

Roger Jenkin: 0439 844 791

Email: calombatpt@bigpond.com

Launched by Robert Cavanagh with the purchase of a single truck in 1988, Inverell, NSW-based Cavanagh’s Transport today runs a fleet of 10 prime movers operating from the Northern Territory and North Queensland and south to Victoria.

Mr Cavanagh grew up on a beef and dairy farm near Casino in the NSW Northern Rivers and started his working life as a truck driver in 1985 with JT & HM Savage at Tamworth, later to become Stockmaster. 

After buying his first truck in 1988, Mr Cavanagh continued to work for Jim and Helen Savage as a sub-contractor for three years before returning to the Casino district to cart cattle for local cattle producers, feedlots and abattoirs.

Mr Cavanagh said that his business has grown by forming strong relationships with loyal customers and growing steadily with those customers over time.

In 1995 as the McDonald family’s Bindaree Beef abattoir was gearing up Mr Cavanagh relocated his business to Inverell. He bought a second truck in 1998 to keep up with the growing cattle industry work in the region and a third in 2000.

Servicing a range of clients including Caledonia Grazing, Western Grazing, Fletchers International, and supermarkets Coles and Woolworths, the business has gradually grown year on year to its present size of 10 prime movers.

In something of a return to where his career first began, in 2010 Mr Cavanagah purchased Stockmaster Transport in Tamworth. Both companies retain their own brands but are run from the same office.

“It was a company with similar values to ours, and it allowed us to expand our client base and our geographic spread,” Mr Cavanagh said.

Mr Cavanagh has previously served as president of the NSW Livestock and Bulk Carriers Association and the Australian Livestock and Rural Transporters Association.

• Click here to return to Top 25 Livestock Transporters table.

Cavanagh's Transport

Robert Cavanagh

Evans Street, Inverell NSW, 2360

M - 0427 223 439
P - 02 6722 3438 
F - 02 6721 3235 

Email: robert@cavanaghstransport.net.au
PO Box 971 Inverell NSW 2360

CHINA is in talks with the United States to allow beef imports from US cattle up to 30 months of age, a spokesman for the country’s top food safety watchdog told the China Daily news agency on Friday.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine last week held talks with the US Department of Agriculture and the Office of the United States Trade Representative to resume the imports of beef, from cattle up to 30 months old.

The talks were held during the 2013 US-China Joint Commission on Commerce and Trade in late November, Chen Xitong, spokesman for the quarantine and food safety agency said during a media conference.

Talks were still ongoing over some ‘technological issues’, Mr Chen told China Daily.

Chinese authorities initially banned all US beef imports when BSE was discovered in the United States in 2003.

In 2006, China lifted the ban on US beef imports from cattle up to 30 months of age old and five kinds of by-products. However, US beef imports to China never recommenced, because US authorities insisted that China lift the ban on all beef imports and products, refusing to issue sanitary certificates for beef from cattle up to 30 months old, according to the food safety watchdog.

While there has been no direct ‘front door’ beef trade between the US and China since 2003, large volumes of US beef have been arriving via the ‘grey channel’, exported to China’s neighbours like Vietnam, before being slipped over the border free of taxes and duties.

The clamp-down by Chinese authorities on the ‘grey trade’ last year was one of the reasons why Australia’s beef exports to China in 2013 have exploded, likely to reach about 140,000 tonnes in calendar 2013, up from 11,000t a year earlier.      

Source: www.chinadaily.com.cn

EASILY one of the most unique transport operations to feature in Beef Central’s inaugural Top 25 is Tasmanian-based Page Transport.

A family-owned company established in 1936 by the late Reg Page with a 1935 Bedford, Page Transport is now operated by his grandsons, Geoff and Chris Page.

The key distinguishing feature of the business is its livestock operations ing Tasmania and the mainland by sea. The business today moves more than 90pc of all livestock travelling to and from Tasmania and the mainland.

Page Transport has developed a livestock transit facility on both sides of Bass Strait, in close proximity to the roll-on, roll-off ports at either end. The head office and holding yards are based at Carrick in Tasmania, near the port of Launceston, while the Victorian depot is at Tullamarine, and holding yards at Bulla.

This provides the shortest possible transit time - a factor critical in some classes of livestock, allowing access to feed and water within as little as 18 hours from the start to the end of the journey.

Page liaises closely with the shipping companies providing the Bass Strait vehicle service, as to prevailing conditions. Calls are made as early as 6am on the day of sailing at the departure port, to determine whether conditions are suitable for crossing. Typically, sea conditions are deemed too rough for livestock transit on between 30 and 40 days a year.

Over the years, Page Transport has developed its own system of shipping livestock across Bass Strait, using purpose-built equipment. The trailers and containers have been continually improved and updated over 50 years since the first roll-on, roll-off crossing was completed in 1962.

The company has constructed almost 60 containers at its own workshop, and built more than 25 40-foot stock crates with appropriate weather protection and ventilation to withstand the rigours of notoriously rough and wet Bass Strait open-deck shipping.

The latest addition is the provision of rubber flooring in response to an issue with larger bullocks, where previously sawdust was used to cushion the feet preventing potential lameness on the longer journey.

Company facilities at either end include yards with state-of-the-art loading ramps, sheltered areas and paddocks for longer-term spelling, as well as hay stores for supplementary feeding, and washdown facilities for cleaning crates.

While the biggest portion of the work is on the leg from Launceston north (both slaughter cattle and feeder cattle), at certain times of year, paying traffic also grows in the opposite direction. Just currently there are about 30 loads a week heading into Tasmania, comprising mostly slaughter and stud cattle.

In addition to the Bass Strait crossing work, Page also does local carting work throughout Tasmania, and across Eastern Australia from the Victorian depot.

The company operates 17 late-model Freightliner prime movers, based both in Tasmania and Victoria. A total of 55 shipping units are used, made up of non-bruise B-double trailers, single trailers and shipping containers.

Reg Page was inducted into the Shell Rimula Wall of Fame at ReUnion 2008, and is recognised in the Road Transport Hall of Fame. He passed away in 2005, aged 92.

Contacts:

Head Office:  315 Oaks Road Carrick Tas

Phone:   03 6393 6777

Geoff Page: Phone: 0418 134 595 geoff@pagetransport.com.au

Chris Page: Phone: 0419 508 252 chris@pagetransport.com.au

Operations Supervisor – Tasmania Jacqui O’Neill: Ph  0419 367 429

Email: admin@pagetransport.com.au

Melbourne Depot: 36 Tullamarine Park Road, Tullamarine Vic

Phone:   03 9338 1485

Operations Supervisor – Victoria Paul Spadafora Ph: 0427 518 404

The Strasburg family name has been synonymous with livestock transport in Queensland for close to 60 years.

The family’s origins in the cattle carting business draw back to 1956 when Arthur and Joyce Strasburg bought two 1954 International trucks and started AN & JD Strasburg Transport at Glamorgan Vale in the Lockyer Valley.

Within 15 years the business had grown to run eight trucks.

In 1976 Arthur and Joyce’s sons Raymond and Lester bought two Commer trucks from their parents and established their own business, Strasburg Bros Livestock Carriers, operating from Toowoomba and Marburg.

As their transport business grew the Strasburg brothers diversified into manufacturing, from 1987 making aluminum bull bars and from 1997 making their own trailers.

The company sells new and used trailers around Australia. Having its own trailer manufacturing business means Strasburg Bros boasts one of the most modern trailer fleets of all transport companies in Australia, with the oldest of its 37 trailers being no more than five years old.

In 2004 Raymond sold out of the business and in 2006 the King Bullbars business was also sold so the company could concentrate on the livestock transporting business.

Today Strasburg Transport continues to operate two depots at Marburg and Toowoomba with 15 prime movers and 37 trailers servicing Queensland, the Northern Territory and New South Wales from Charters Towers to Casino, west to Longreach and “anywhere else that cattle need to be moved.”

Lester Strasburg says the business has been founded on strong relationships that have been built over the years, and “honesty, hard work and dedication to doing the job well”.

“Having a good team that has been stable for years and the customers know them and like them is very important,” he said. “We have one driver who has been here in excess of 30 years.”

The company’s fleet comprises 12 Western Star and three Kenworth prime movers.

Asked if he believed it was still possible in today’s environment for other young drivers to build their own large scale trucking company as he did with his brother over the past 35 years, Mr Strasburg said it was, but hard work and patience were essential

“They would have to be willing to work for it and pay attention to their book work, and they would also have to have some patience and allow the business to build itself up."
 

Lester Strasburg

3 Edmond Street
Marburg QLD 4346
PO Box 21
Marburg QLD 4346

P - 07 5464 4686

P - 07 5464 4011 (transport bookings)

M - 0408 876 328 (Les)

Email: accounts@strasburgs.com.au

Website: www.strasburgs.com.au

WHILE the overwhelming majority of entries on our inaugural Top 25 livestock transporters list are ‘traditional’ transport service providers, the world’s largest beef producer, Australian Agricultural Co, maintains its own trucking fleet large enough to qualify it in position number 19.

AA Co is without question the largest user of livestock transport services in Australia, selling 250,000 cattle each year either into slaughter or live export markets, in addition to about 100,000 head being moved through the company supply chain each year.

While the company remains a customer of commercial transport service providers like RTA and Frasers for the bulk of its stock movements, AA Co has nine prime movers of its own based on its northern breeding and growing properties.

Mostly Kenworths plus a Mack and a Western Star, they include seven units that are operated as six-double deck roadtrains, and two with single-deck, three-trailer roadtrains. 

In addition to stock transport, AA Co owns a number of body trucks with crates, two side-tipping road trains and a low loader used to transport bull dozers and other heavy earthmoving equipment from job to job. Three of the road train prime movers also have access to flatbed trailers for carting hay, station supplies and equipment when not being used for cattle work.

The company-owned livestock trucks are deployed in a number of ways:

• With individual stations like Brunette Downs covering more than 12,000sq km, the trucks spend part of their working life simply ferrying weaners and other cattle around to different paddocks as they are allocated, within the property’s boundaries, which can be 60-80km apart.
• Other stock are ferried from company breeding to growing or backgrounding properties, or as feeder cattle to company feedlots in Central or southern Queensland.
• Transporting live export cattle to export yards in Darwin, and
• During quieter times of year, the trucks are also used for contract work servicing other northern beef producers, or doing sub-contracting work with RTA.

“By owning some of our own trucking infrastructure, it allows us to operate more efficiently, reducing empty-running by being able to integrate our back-loads and manage our station labour,” chief operating officer Troy Setter said.

“By using our own trucks to take cattle direct from property to ship in Darwin from our two registered export yards, it allows us to sell our cattle on a Free Alongside Ship (FAS) basis. This assists our customers with their supply chain, and increases our sale prices and weights,” Mr Setter said.

Contacts:

Australian Agricultural Company

Level 1, Tower A, Gasworks Plaza, 76 Skyring Terrace, Newstead  QLD

Ph (07) 3368 4400  email: info@aaco.com.au   Web: www.aaco.com.au

Toowoomba-based Robertson's Transport works throughout large areas of Queensland and New South Wales, as well as undertaking occasional jobs as far afield as Queensland's Cape York Peninsula and Perth in WA.

Managing Director Greg Robertson started working in the business, started by his father John, as a driver aged 17 some 47 years ago.

Mr Robertson declined to be interviewed for this feature. A profile on Robertson’s Transport in a Cummins Engine magazine earlier this year listed the company's fleet at 17 prime movers and three body trucks working on mainly road train livestock haulage.

The fleet contains primarily Kenworth, Mack and Western Star prime movers, and the company was last year chosen by Iveco to pilot test its recently launched Powerstar 7800 Road Train, which is powered by a Cummins Signature 600.

Robertson's Transport

12 Parker Street
Drayton QLD 4350

P - 07 4630 1290

F - 07 4630 2294

Email: cattletrans@hotmail.com