WA Farmers Federation recently held their 2023 conference. The Federation is the advocacy organisation that represents farmers and agriculture-related businesses, and this year’s annual conference indicated that their hardworking team has been busier than ever. The conference covered many issues, from live sheep trade to CBH’s handling of the largest WA harvest ever, and the decisions concerning the Cultural Heritage Bill. The day was rounded out with a lively story or two from Australian cricket legend, Brad Hogg, who is a national ambassador for GPA’s Farmer Mates Mental Health program and a WA Lifeline Ambassador.
The day was very well attended by representatives of many businesses and farmers, with attendance both in person, and via video links to their farms.
The Meat Livestock Australia (MLA) presented the report, which showed just how small a player Australia is in the global protein market. Only 3% of all protein produced in the world comes from Australia. The good news is we are a very active exporting nation across meat commodities, and this does affect world prices. As can be seen by the following data from MLA, Australia has 11% of the world’s meat export market and, with constant marketing, this figure is increasing.
Cattle and sheep prices have been under considerable pressure due to increased supply and the tight labour market. Difficulty finding staff is affecting abattoirs and impacting their through-put. However, overall, the world is still after beef and, with the BSE scare in Brazil, the demand for Australian beef should increase.
Following the MLA presentation, the Department of Primary Industry and Regional Development (DPIRD) chaired a very lively discussion concerning the emissions reduction strategy and climate change. Farming, in general, will be expected to do all it can to reduce carbon emissions.
The positives for farmers are that some current practices are already reducing carbon emissions, such as:
· Min till/no till
· Management of erosion/ keeping cover on the soil
· Tree planting
· Good pasture management
This, however, is only the start and there will be continued pressure on the agriculture industry to further reduce its carbon footprint. Some areas that will be used to address this include:
· Feed quality and nutrition
· Breeding for improved genetics
· Methane capture
· Manure management
· Improved animal health and welfare (less stress on the animal)
Regulatory creep was also a hot discussion topic, one that most farmers would be very well aware of, and something that regularly makes the news in Europe. The message here was that, to import to these countries, a lot of regulations must be met, which is something that may increase over time. The world has grown smaller and often when Europe or America catches a cold, we catch Covid. This discussion was provided by Sue McCluskey the special representative for Australia Agriculture.
The conference also covered a CBH report on the biggest harvest in history, 22.7mt received, 15 days of receival of over 500,000 ton. All this done by 2000 + harvest casuals. Harvest went well and CBH is investing a lot of capital to improve grain handling mechanisms to achieve shipment as quickly as possible, in order to capture the best prices that are available on the world market.
The team from Episode3 (ep3) gave an interesting insight into the trends in the agriculture industry, from pricing on urea, which thankfully has been on a downward trend, although still impacted by the war in the Ukraine, and labour shortages. It was suggested that. with the global unemployment rate on a downward trend, the issue with finding workers will not be improving anytime soon. So, with labour supply being low, the cost of hiring will keep going up.
Congratulations to the hardworking team from the WA Farmers Federation for putting together such a well organised, informative and interactive day.
