30th July 2020
Livestock Advisor Update
South Australia
Theme - Business Resilience
Virtual Conference
Proudly supported by MLA, AWI and the SA Livestock Consultants
Program
This program is designed to support us and our clients to come out of the recent challenging few months with the information, tools and research to support business resilience.
Professor Richard Eckard
Richard Eckard is Professor of Livestock Production Systems and Director of the
Primary Industries Climate Challenges Centre (www.piccc.org.au) at the University of Melbourne. Richard is an advisor to the Australian, New Zealand and UK governments, and the UN Food and Agriculture Organization and the European Union on climate change adaptation, mitigation and policy development
in agriculture. His research focuses on sustainable livestock production systems, carbon
farming and options for agriculture to respond to a changing climate.
Chris Scheid
Are you really getting to the core of the business issues with your clients? Numbers don’t make the world go round but they help us understand how and why the world does goes round. Some simple farm business ratios, benchmarks and rules of thumb can assist advisers to know more about their client’s business, and help to make a difference. In ‘smart, not hard financial analyses’, Chris Scheid (ProAdvice) will provide some simple ratios that advisers can gather ‘in conversation’ so as to better understand and better service clients.”
Penny Schulz
Penny and her family run a cattle and sheep operation at Field in S.A. They also produce bulls, females, semen and embryos sold across Aust and NZ. In addition Penny works off-farm delivering projects and teaching at university to the livestock industry using her expertise in the fields of animal genetics, farm business management, and agtech. Penny hopes to complete her PhD in 2020 in agtech.. Penny is the Vice President of Livestock SA, Chair of the SA Cattle Industry Fund, a member of MLA’s Producer Adoption Reference Group and recently appointed to the Minister for Primary Industries Agtech Advisory Group. Penny’s presentation will cover how de decide on technology needed to support business, what is available and what’s the ROI, how will it integrate into current management practices, what support there is to implement it and how to analyse data and reports for better decision making.
Dr Andrew Thompson
Dr Andrew Thompson is the Chair of Animal Science and Research leader based at Murdoch University.
Andrew’s work has made significant contribution to improving the reproductive performance of adult ewes and ewe lambs, including co-development of ‘Lifetime Ewe Management’’ and ‘Bred Well Fed Well’. Andrew will briefly cover recent and current reproduction R&D being undertaken by Murdoch University and partners, and then together with John provide an update on the optimum condition score targets for Maternal ewes.
John Young
John has been working as a farming systems modeller for the last 30 years helping implement new research findings on-farm across southern Australia. He has been involved in a number of projects evaluating the on-farm implications of
improving management and optimising ewe nutrition, such as determining research priorities
for reproduction in wool and meat enterprises, ·
reviewing the economic implications of research examining lamb survival and evaluation of alternative pasture systems. John will co present with Andrew Thompson on reproduction R & D update and CS targets for maternal ewes.
Dr David Beatty
MLA - Group Manager - Productivity & Animal Wellbeing
David will be on the Q & A discussion panel session for MLA at the end of the day. David is a veterinarian with a PhD and background in agriculture research. In 2009, David joined Meat and Livestock Australia as the Live Export R&D Manager. Between 2012 and 2017 he was based in the Middle East firstly as the MLA Livestock Services Manager and then as the MLA Regional Manager for MENA.
Now based in Western Australia, David is the MLA Group Manager for Productivity and Animal Wellbeing. This role focuses on delivering research and development across on farm program areas including beef, sheep and goat productivity, animal health and welfare, feed base, feedlot and live export.
Neils Olsen
Dairy farmer Niels Olsen was left scratching his head when his paddock went yellow and dry. What he didn’t realise was that he was adding acid via fertiliser to an already acidic soil . This led to a passion for learning about soil biology .Four years on, Olsen has also used his new-found knowledge to invent a remarkable new machine which improves the soil so much, pasture and crop yields are doubling in just a few months. Olsen will describe how his machine builds pasture diversity and improves soil carbon and profitability and how he and many other farmers are benefitting from this process.
Georgie Keynes
In 2014, and then in 2015, fires burnt across much of the Eastern Mt Lofty Ranges, both times impacting Georgie’s family’s property. Her presentation will share her story of recovery and resilience through personal experiences and the findings from BIGG’s fire recovery projects which followed the recovery process over two years on different properties in the area.
Georgie Keynes is the executive officer for the Barossa Improved Grazing Group (BIGG). She has been involved with BIGG since the inception of the group in 2012 and has worked proactively with the local beef, sheep and dairy producers and livestock production groups to deliver project
that improve grazing businesses in the Barossa area. She also works within her family farming business which runs sheep and cattle on a property located at Keyneton.
Emma Gillingham
Emma is Consumer Insights Manager at Meat and Livestock Australia. Emma has worked in market research and insights for more than 10 years, and is a QPR accredited member of The Research Society. In her role at Meat and Livestock Australia, Emma leads insight delivery which supports the needs of the domestic market, working with brand, category and agency partners
to drive the understanding and adoption of insights across the industry. These insights build on the understanding of the domestic consumer, their behaviour and attitudes towards red meat, and ultimately how we can continue to meet
their needs into the future. In her presentation, Emma will explore how red meat consumption is evolving, consumer perceptions of the Australian red meat industry, and the importance of maintaining social licence to ensure we can continue to meet consumers’ needs.
Sarah Strachan –
MLA Group Manager – Adoption & commercialisation
Sara will be on the Q & A discussion panel for MLA at the end of the day along with David Beatty. Sarah oversees the delivery and development of the programs in MLA that include Livestock Genetics, Meat Standards Australia and Producer Adoption. These program areas within MLA are responsible for providing commercial services and products of their own for the whole supply chain, but largely producers and processors, as well as being accountable for ensuring MLA research projects have well identified pathways to adoption.
Cam Nicholson
Cam Nicholson is a partner in Nicon Rural Services, a consulting business near Geelong working with the grazing and cropping industries and in natural resource management. Cam has been involved in many farmer programs for the GRDC, MLA, Dairy Australia, Southern Farming
Systems and Landcare. He provides consultancy advice to farmers and lectures on animal and pasture systems at Marcus Oldham College. He and his wife Fiona run a 400 ha beef and sheep farm on the Bellarine Peninsula turning off
cattle for the long fed Japanese market, lambs and wool. Cam will be demonstrating a simple tool to enable rapid assessment of pasture condition and provide an update on recent developments with satellite monitoring of pastures.
John Roberts
John is the General Manager, Eastern Hemisphere for Australian Wool Innovation and brings nearly 30 years’ experience in the wool industry, having worked in a wide range of industry sectors from primary production to processing, marketing and trading. He stems from a wool producing family in Binalong, NSW.
John’s presentation will cover market insights through the consumer supply chain, which will help us to better advise clients on what to aim for with production and marketing.
Professor Wayne Pitchford
Professor Pitchford is the Director of the Davies Livestock Research Centre with a focus on improving animal productivity well being, genomics, reproductive technologies and management strategies. Wayne will co present with Stephen Lee to provide the latest research snapshots to update consultants on the most up to date take research applications for livestock farming.
Dr Stephen Lee
Stephen is focused on building the research
portfolio of Davies Livestock Research Centre. Stephen has extensive experience
in applied livestock research and adoption, and private sector work in product
development and commercialisation. Stephen managed the SA Sheep Industry Blueprint
and Beef Industry Blueprint development and implementation from 2015-2019. He
continue to contribute to the Blueprints as a Working Group member. His presentation will cover; the costs of empty heifers and first-calf cows, impact of seasonal conditions and cow body condition on calving rate & insights from black baldy project.
Emily King
AWI - Program Manager, research and extension.
Emily will be on the Q & A discussion panel for AWI at the end of the day. Emily grew up in central NSW and has always worked in agriculture, beginning her career with Australian Livestock & Property Agents Association before moving to AWI in 2012. Emily has worked in a number of teams at AWI, but has always focussed on working with people and sharing information across the supply chain, whether that be discussing marking rates with growers or promoting the benefits of Australian wool to an Italian designer.
Jane Littlejohn
AWI - General Manager - Research
Jane will be on the Q & A discussion panel for AWI at the end of the day. Jane Littlejohn is General Manger of Research at Australian Wool Innovation and has been with AWI for 8 years managing research investments. She has worked as a private and government veterinarian, in agriculture policy analysis and advocacy and as a director of a large retail co-operative. She currently runs a beef farming enterprise in coastal NSW.