AgLife – November 24, 2021 edition

November 24, 2021

Jump to it It has been a busy period for lamb and sheep sales across the region. Jen Hayes rounds up a bustling mob of excited sheep at Horsham Regional Livestock Exchange’s latest weekly sale.

Picture: PAUL CARRACHER

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ix PhD students have won selection to help with research in Horsham as part of a Victorian Grains Innovation Partnership between Agriculture Victoria and Grains Research and Development Centre.

The partnership aims to improve the enduring profitability of Victorian and Australian grain growers through world- class research and innovation.

The students are completing their fellowships at Grains Innovation Park in Horsham with support and mentorship from scientists at Agriculture Victoria and Melbourne University.

The PhD research fellowships are part of the Centre for Agricultural Innovation, a joint initiative between Agriculture Victoria and The University of Melbourne.

Agriculture Victoria Research director and Grains Innovation Park site leader Traci Griffin said she was excited to be hosting the students, whose work would further build the research and innovation capability and capacity for the grains industry.

“These fellowships are key to the development of the future workforce in grains research and Agriculture Victoria is proud to provide this opportunity and mentorship,” she said.

“The research projects tackle different issues southern grain growers face

and the results will have far-reaching impacts for the sector.”

GRDC interim managing director Cathie Warburton said the Australian grains industry needed people with specialist skills to progress research and innovation to ensure the sector’s ongoing success and viability.

“GRDC is committed to supporting and encouraging students through initiatives such as this one, as part of our strategy to build research capacity and capability,” she said.

“Our partnership with VGIP helps ensure some of our most innovative and talented PhD students have the opportunity to be involved in projects that will have an impact at a paddock level as well as on a national and global scale.”

Danielle Yidan Tang is investigating the use of sensor technology to determine grain quality before harvest.

Grain quality is a major determinant of on-farm profitability and can vary spatially across farms.

Danielle, a PhD student with the University of Melbourne, said she was focusing on lentils and faba beans.

“They are the top two winter pulses that are produced in Victoria,” she said.

“I started my PhD in March this year after I graduated and I did my honours at University of Melbourne focusing on a viticulture project.

RESEARCH: From left, PhD students Sachesh Silwal, Bhawana Bhattarai, Danielle Yidan Tang, Spencer Fan and Keshia Savage are pictured with research director Traci Griffin and supervisors Cassandra Walker and Glenn Fitzgerald at Grains Innovation Park in Horsham.

Student Amit Adhakari is absent.

Picture: PAUL CARRACHER “Before that I did my three-year Bachelor degree at University of Melbourne. I was the class of 2019 valedictorian.

“I love living here, regional Victoria is definitely something different than what I am used to in the city.

“I am loving the field trials and being able to go out and check on

my experiments. Grains Innovation Park has lots of equipment for me to explore, especially as I’m working on this remote sensing project which involves lots of sensors, which are really cool to work with, and my supervisors are experts in the field.

“I am really grateful to be able to work with them.”

The successful students will be working on areas of profitable pulse crops and bridging the profitability gap.

• Sachesh Silwal is evaluating the agronomic suitability of mungbean to farming systems in southern Australia by defining the phenology, water and nitrogen dynamics of this crop across a range of Victorian growing environments.

• Spencer Fan is undertaking an environmental analysis of potential effectiveness of different root ideotypes for different soil types for southern Australia using both historical and future predicted climate records.

• Bhawana Bhattarai is investigating the effects of storage strategies on grain quality to identify best storage practices and enable grain growers to better maintain grain quality and value prior to sale.

• Keshia Savage is examining the relationship between soil physicochemical properties and the response of grain crops to different management interventions on a 3D spatial scale.

• Amit Adhakari is developing and assessing the potential of new management strategies designed to improve the capture and use of rainfall by grain crops in future climates. Research involves laboratory, glasshouse, field and computer simulation studies.

Flock-dispersal sale draws in crowd A yarding of 11,000 merino ewes, wethers and crossbred lambs went under the hammer at an AWN Wimmera special sheep and lamb sale at Horsham Regional Livestock Exchange.

The sale represented a rare opportunity for growers to buy quality lines of proven Wimmera breeders and attracted competition from all over the state.

A crowd attended the auction and almost 100 registered bidders ‘logged on’ through Auctions Plus online.

The sale involved two major flock dispersals.

E. C. and J. M. Heard Family Trust, Natimuk, offered a partial flock dispersal of 1572 Wallaloo Park-Belbourie blood ewes, march shorn and ranging in ages from one-and-a-half to six-and-ahalf years.

The top draft of one-and-a-half-year-old ewes made $316 and was bought by J. M. Ellis and co. at Hamilton. Another sale of two-and-a-halfyear-old ewes made $290 and were bought by J. S. and E. M. Staude from Harrow.

A second dispersal featured 1500 ewes and lambs offered by B. W. and H. K. Flynn of Douglas.

The top draft of two-and-a-half-year-olds made $244, while three-and-a-half-year-old ewes made $240. The top-price two-and-a-half-year-old ewes also made their way to Harrow, going to the Staude family.

Others lines of young ewes made from $150 to $251, while older ewes made from $160 to $230.

The sale of shorn and woolly merino wether lambs also attracted spirited competition.

The top wether lambs were a pen of 117 head, April-May, 2021 drop and October shorn, which made $154.

Girvan Lea offered a top pen of woolly wether lambs. These lambs weighed 42 kilograms and made $151.

A line-up of shorn and woolly crossbred lambs were also meet with strong demand. Prices ranged from $116 to $180.

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A story to tell...

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’ve always lived at Rupanyup. I love this little community.

I love the characters you meet in the street; the way everyone says g’day; the fact that you do the steering wheel wave to every car that passes, local or not. I love the rec reserve on a Saturday; the ‘dew busters’ running out onto a foggy oval, the animated chatter from the netball court; and the quiet beer to end the day around the bar or bonfire.

Pre COVID-19, I often visited Melbourne.

I came to love this city too. The laneways bustling with people going to their favourite restaurant; the unmarked door that led to a rooftop bar; the way the city hummed on a Friday night with people going to footy at the ‘G’, a stage show in the many theatres or a band in a nearby pub.

A few years ago I realised these two places I love have related but opposite problems. The quality of life in Rupanyup is at risk because there are too few people. The quality of life in Melbourne is at risk because there are too many people.

In a country the size of Australia, it makes no sense that we concentrate the majority of our population in a narrow strip from just north of Brisbane, around the coast to Geelong.

On the fringes of the major cities we’re building large housing estates with no community infrastructure; we’re feeding more cars onto already congested roads and we’re pricing a generation of people out of the housing market.

Policy that leads to better distribution of population would benefit everyone.

When I’d test this view with city-based colleagues I’d invariably get a response of ‘there’s

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no jobs in rural areas’. So it’s important to note the latest report from Regional Australia Institute showing, over the past few months, there’s an average of 66,000 jobs advertised in regional Australia at any one time. And guess what happens when you fill those jobs? You create even more demand for local goods and services and so even more jobs.

In the major cities, governments will not be able to keep up with the infrastructure needs of a rapidly rising population. There will be more roads to build, more schools to build, more community facilities to build.

In rural areas we have surplus public infrastructure. Schools that could accommodate twice as many students; sports ovals, tennis courts, swimming pools already in place; the roads and bridges are built.

It’s easy to blame governments for policy failure. But I’ve come to believe it’s up to us, the people, to drive the conversation.

If we do that well, government will eventually back us with good policy.

So when it comes to attracting more people to live in rural and regional areas, let’s all be 24-7 marketers. At every chance, and with everyone we meet, let’s be vocal advocates of the wonderful life you can have living, working and playing with us.

ON THE MOVE: Vendors yarded 10,950 lambs and 4400 sheep at the latest weekly sale at Horsham Regional Livestock Exchange.

Pictured during the hustle of sales activity are, Jen Hayes, rounding up stock, and left, transport operator Gavin O’Sullivan and exporter Peter Hooper assessing details. Pictures: PAUL CARRACHER

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tawell’s Frew Foods International meat-processing firm is on a desperate hunt to find extra workers to cope with its pressing lamb-production lines.

Company owner and managing director Robert Frew said the business was about 100 workers short and needed people to step forward to become part of a busy family enterprise.

“We basically have a call-out to skilled and unskilled, male or female workers,” he said.

“We have jobs – from management positions to tradespeople and workers on the floor. We’re trying to expand and we need people.”

Mr Frew said the COVID-19 pandemic during the past two years had forced a reduction in staff from about 500 to 400 and there was now a need to ramp up production.

“We’re advertising constantly for locals and we’re also trying to bring people from overseas, which obviously has its difficulties,” he said.

Mr Frew said the worker shortage was a major issue throughout the industry.

“All you can do in this situation is simply process less than you should be. We’re probably running at 80 percent processing capacity,” he said.

“The lambs are there and the farmers want to sell them to us. We just need a workforce to process them.

WE HAVE WORK: Frew Foods International managing director Robert Frew needs people to step up and fill job vacancies.

Picture: PAUL CARRACHER “At the moment we’re processing 5000 lambs a day for domestic and export markets when we should be doing 6000.”

Mr Frew said the meatworks was in the middle of its peak part of the year, which added an extra level of ‘desperation’ to the worker call.

“There are so many benefits and op-

portunities working in this industry. I started in the industry as a meatworker and am an example of how far you can go if you want to,” he said.

“Our family has managed the business for 40 years and we’ve had people here for all those 40 years.

“You can move through the system at abattoirs, be it via human-resource

management or quality assurance to senior management.

“We would dearly like a few more responses to our advertising.

“We’ll train people up for various jobs, which can set them up for life.

“We can also help people find places to live and settle into the community if they’re not local.”

The State Government has backed Victorian secondary schools to support more students with ambitions to embark on careers in agriculture.

Agriculture Minister Mary-Anne Thomas said the government would support educators to provide new programs for students through a $5.5-million Secondary Schools Agriculture Fund.

The program is part of the government’s $30-million Future Agriculture Skills Capacity Fund, led by Agriculture Victoria in partnership with the Department of Education and Training, to support TAFEs and other agricultural education and training providers.

Ms Thomas said the Secondary Schools Agriculture Fund would help Victoria meet the demands of its growing farm, food and fibre sector, which needed more workers with digital, information-technology, business and marketing skills. It would promote food and fibre entrepreneurs who could take products to international markets.

She said $4.5-million would go towards investing in programs and resources that would boost pathways into agricultural careers and $1-million for tech schools to invest in state-of-the art resources and new technology.

Expressions of interest for the Secondary Schools Agriculture Fund will open for tech schools in late 2021 and secondary schools by mid-2022.

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Transport win

A

bout 80,000 tonnes of grain in 3000 transport containers will head to port on rail instead of road this harvest after confirmation of a major transport deal involving Wimmera Agricultural Logistics Hub at Dooen.

portant to consider costs when assessing logistics, efficiently ‘getting the product to market’ was an essential part of the equation.

“It’s all about efficiencies. What it really means, for everyone, is that we’ve taken 4500 truck movements from Horsham, through Ballarat and onto Melbourne off the road and put freight onto rail,” he said.

“That equates to considerable saving for the environment, because using rail is a ‘greener’ alternative, our roads from extra wear and tear, fewer traffic road fatalities and a reduction in noise and congestion.

“Governments have indicated a need to be ‘greener’ and that’s good news for rail transport.”

Mr Eryurek said the success of rail-freight was all about volume.

“Rail is a hungry beast and works best if you can feed it volume. It has an ability to transport large volumes in a short period of time,” he said.

Mr Eryurek spoke earlier in the year, when SCT announced it would enhance its operational presence at Dooen, about the importance of rail-freight connectivity to and from regional areas.

He again emphasised a need for integration between rail and road freight operations to get the best outcome for all involved.

“There is value for both rail and trucks.

But we want trucks to feed freight into the outer hubs rather than competing with the hubs so exporters can get the benefit of rail transport,” he said.

“Trucks remain vital and getting the formula right is about working together.”

Transport company SCT Group, developing its presence and capacity at the intermodal hub, has confirmed a new arrangement with Australian Grain Export’s Rupanyup-based subsidiary Wimmera Grain.

The deal means SCT Group will take responsibility of getting Wimmera Grain’s bulk produce to Melbourne. It will use a transport system that instead of placing trucks on busy highways with all other traffic, involves trucking material to the Dooen hub and then sending it on via rail.

SCT Group general manager Matt Eryurek said the deal meant there would be 4500 fewer ‘truck movements’ sharing a busy highway with other motorists a year.

“The beauty with rail is that it can flex up and down to demand and can move a considerable amount at peak times,” he said.

“I think this is a really good story for rail transport in the region and reflective of the benefit of the State Government’s Mode Shift Incentive Scheme.”

The government invested $3.6-million as part of its 2021-22 State Budget to extend the scheme until June 30, next year.

The scheme is designed to move more freight on rail to reduce pressure on roads and traffic and reduce heavy-vehicle emissions.

Mr Eryurek said while it was always im-

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HOW IT’S DONE: Longerenong College teacher Greg Radford shows Mentone Grammar students, from left, Ashton Phillips, Cooper Friso, Brayden Christie and Josh Simmons how to ride a quad bike during a week-long stay at the college.

Picture: PAUL CARRACHER

Mentone students at Longerenong Mentone Grammar school students have continued a tradition of learning first-hand about agriculture by spending a week at Longerenong College near Horsham.

Victorian Certificate of Advanced Learning students from the Melbourne school have taken the opportunity to explore various aspects of life on the land.

The school has a strong relationship with the tertiary in-

stitution and has been sending students to the Wimmera to gain a greater understanding of agriculture for many years.

This year’s cohort has included 21 students and their teacher Amy Watts has been part of the experience for the first time.

“It gets kids exposed to different environments and a different type of work life. And they get to learn about the workplace such as occupational health and safety,” she said.

Glenera No

Longerenong teacher Greg Radford said the students gained experience in various aspects of agriculture.

“They’ve been coming here for at least 12 years, and they get to experience things such as cattle, grains, agronomy, machinery, welding, mechanics and they even get their own room,” he said.

“They also achieve a competency-in-penning-sheep qualification.”

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A dose of reality

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s I write this column, there’s the wonderful sound of light rain on a tin roof.

My garden is lush and full of noisy miner birds cackling in the bottlebrush making a hell of a racket. King parrots announce their daily arrival for some sunflower seeds with a bright and distinctive whistle and have to fight off the pesky sulphur-crested cockatoos.

I’ve even trained my dogs to chase away the cockies but leave the parrots.

The only noise that reminds me of civilisation is the huge freight trains that rumble through the town several times a day. I even enjoy that.

A sense of bigger things happening in faraway places.

The best thing I ever did was leave Melbourne to return to country life. I’ve always felt a connection to the land; landscapes and gum trees in particular. And, like most country people, I have a great passion for animals.

Of course Mother Nature always reminds us of her might and the heartbreak she can bring.

My first lesson in, ‘living on the land isn’t easy’ was working as a jillaroo in western Victoria when I was just 20.

It was in the middle of shocking drought and beef cattle had started to drop to the ground. The farmer would move them to the hayshed with a front-end loader and turn them every day in the hope they’d recover. None of them did.

Thankfully farmers now know better to destock early to save not just the animals from starvation, but the land from soil and wind erosion.

Then came the mouse plague in 1984 when I was living in Young, NSW. The bitumen roads became carpeted with squashed mice. The heat-seeking rodents would

95 Nelson Street, Nhill CALL 03 5391 2106

Country Today with Libby Price

literally crawl up the legs of horses, to snuggle underneath the horse rugs at night. Hundreds would drown in swimming pools overnight.

The only place they couldn’t get into was the fridge. Even ovens and cooktops were infested. I woke one night with a mouse nibbling my toes. ‘Is that a man or a mouse?’ I hear you say.

My first experience of flooding rain was working at Jemalong near Forbes, which was flooding just last week.

It was then another drought. It rained like I’d only ever experienced in the tropics. My bedroom windows were wide open and within minutes, the room was a good six centimetres deep in water.

We went to the West Wyalong races and the ‘lads’ were stripping down to their jocks and ‘swimming’ in the mud, such was the joy of the drought breaking. A very fine spectacle indeed.

I’ve also reported on fires including Black Saturday and the fires two years ago. Several farmers have said to me, ‘give me a drought any day. We know how to deal with that. Fires are terrifying and deadly and having lived through one is more than enough’.

But if nothing else, country living gives you perspective and a good dose of reality. We should remind ourselves of how lucky we are.

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SEEDS FOR PAKISTAN: Trade Minister Dan Tehan, second from left, is pictured with Hamilton district Hensley Park cropping farming family, from left, Rowan Moyle, Dallas Moyle, Mason Moyle and Graeme Moyle.

Diversifying canola crops Australian Trade Minister and Member for Wannon Dan Tehan has welcomed a resumption of canola-seed exports to Pakistan after a five-year wait.

Mr Tehan said the Federal Government was supporting Australian exporters to reach new markets and the Pakistan deal was a major breakthrough.

He said Australian canolaseed producers could resume exporting later this year after the government worked with Pakistani authorities to

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resolve phytosanitary and technical import issues.

He said he expected the deal to generate significant revenue for exporters and support jobs and businesses.

Pakistan imported $426million in canola in 2020.

Australia last exported $30million in canola to the growing market in 2016-17.

Mr Tehan said the government support for exporters came through a $73-million Agribusiness Expansion Initiative and with help from Austrade.

“Exporters are helping to drive Australia’s economic recovery while creating jobs and supporting local businesses and communities,” he said.

“Our government is supporting exporters to diversify their customer base by proactively pursuing new free trade agreements and programs like the Agribusiness Expansion Initiative and IFAM that help businesses succeed internationally.”

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Irrigator helps in disease research

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new travelling overhead irrigator at Horsham SmartFarm is helping researchers find new sources of resistance to field-crop diseases.

Agriculture Victoria senior research scientist Dr Joshua Fanning said a field-crops pathology group was screening 17 pulse and cereal diseases at Horsham SmartFarm.

Identifying resistance to disease prevents grain yield and quality losses and reduces the disease management required by growers.

The new irrigator will support the disease screening program and tap into a new wastewater treatment facility in Horsham.

Agriculture Victoria bought the irrigator with support from Grains Research and Development Corporation, with its primary purpose to support a new chickpea ascochyta research project.

Dr Fanning said ascochyta blight represented the greatest threat to chickpea production in Australia.

“All commercial varieties are susceptible to the disease. This means growers need to apply multiple fungicides each year to manage the disease and prevent crop losses,” he said.

“Increased management needs have meant the chickpea production area is shrinking nationally.

“With this new overhead irrigator, we can screen 20,000 chickpea lines each year to find

new sources of resistance that can be used by breeders and pre-breeders to develop more resistant varieties.”

Agriculture Victoria research has shown 80 and 90 percent grain yield losses in susceptible varieties in Victoria without disease control, highlighting the need for integrated disease management in chickpeas.

Looking for improved disease resistance is part of a national effort led by Agriculture Victoria and Grains Research and Development Corporation to find ways to improve disease-management options for chickpea growers.

The irrigator will also contribute to other research trials in Horsham where researchers screen more than 100,000 plant lines for disease resistance across eight different crops and 17 diseases each year.

Using irrigation in the screening process for both cereals and pulses mitigates a seasonal effect.

Using reliable methods, Agriculture Victoria can determine accurate and reliable disease resistance ratings.

This allows growers to be confident in the disease ratings for each variety and develop an integrated disease-management plan based on the ratings.

More information is available on Field Crop Diseases Victoria’s website, extensionaus. com.au/FieldCropDiseasesVic/home.

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GEARED UP: Viterra employees Lachlan Pike, left, and Colby Ledger are pictured with the first newseason grain at Dooen and are ready for a major ramp-up for the 202122 harvest.

Viterra primed for bumper harvest Viterra’s Dooen site is primed for an expected bumper 2021-22 Wimmera harvest and is already busy receiving new-series grain.

Viterra Adelaide region operations manager Neil Carr said the team worked hard to ensure safe and efficient services in readiness for the season.

“Growers can deliver wheat, barley, canola, lentils and faba beans into our Dooen site this year,” he said.

“We have the flexibility to extend opening hours when growers need it and have everything in place to ensure growers are able to deliver their loads as quickly as possible during a

busy time of year for them.

We have recruited about 40 seasonal employees to join the site over harvest to support our permanent workforce, with a focus on getting growers’ grain into storage easily and efficiently.”

Viterra has also introduced new services ahead of the harvest including digital delivery advice.

“Our new digital delivery advice will help to save time and streamline the delivery process for growers as they can duplicate delivery advices, prefill information and complete a declaration once for each commodity

and variety in a paddock,” Mr Carr said.

He said Viterra also had multiple cash payment options available at the site and through warehouse to cash with new additions to its payment offering.

“Our new extended payment terms enables growers to transfer their warehoused grain through warehouse to cash, to a cash price with longer payment terms,” he said.

“We also have sustainable cash now at site in addition to through warehouse to cash. These join our daily cash price, which continues to be available at site and through warehouse to cash.”

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