Plans are underway for the 2023 BestWool/BestLamb Conference and dinner to be held in Bendigo on 19 and 20 June. BestWool/BestLamb is a partnership between Agriculture Victoria and Australian Wool Innovation.

The dinner will be celebrating 25 years of BestWool/Best Lamb network, with the conference on the following day. Further details to come, but mark your calendars now.

[Back to Top]

[Back to Top]

Have you noticed a lot of commentary about carbon markets in the press recently?  

An emerging carbon offset market offering payments for new carbon sequestered on-farm sounds like an interesting option for farmers hoping to reduce their emissions profile and diversify their business income stream. 

To support farmers learn more about getting involved in this market, Agriculture Victoria has developed a list of questions to ask before selling carbon. 

The first thing to consider is the reason why you might like to sell sequestered carbon from trees or soils on your property. Questions include, but are not limited to: 

• Does selling carbon fit your long-term property/business goal?
• Might you want to retain your carbon for use in offsetting/insetting against your own farm emissions at some future point? 
• Are you prepared to undertake benchmarking, ongoing sampling, and measurement activities to verify carbon stocks?

Participation as a seller of carbon is voluntary, so farmers get to choose if they would like to participate as a seller of carbon into the offsets market. Some questions to ask include, but are not limited to:

• Will any longer-term covenants be placed on my land?
• What happens if the carbon offset company goes broke?
• Will the carbon offset company require access to my property and if so, how often? 

In addition to selling carbon, there are also many other practical ways that farmers can reduce emissions or increase carbon on their farm and the 'Making cent$ of carbon and emissions on-farm' booklet provides practical actions that farm businesses can take now to improve their emissions performance.

If you’re interested in selling carbon, seek independent legal and financial advice to ensure that you are aware of all the considerations and obligations that apply in this developing market.  

For more information visit Agriculture Victoria or the Australian Government – Clean Energy Regulator.

[Back to Top]

Funding applications are open for cattle and sheep producers throughout Australia who are interested in running local projects to demonstrate on-farm benefits of research and development findings.

Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) is calling for applications for its 2023-24 Producer Demonstration Sites (PDS) program, applications opened 3 April 2023 and close 16 May 2023. This includes levy and co-contributor funding options for projects ranging from two to six years.

To learn more visit the MLA website.

[Back to Top]

Agriculture Victoria is offering all Victorian sheep and beef producers the opportunity to participate in the Livestock Farm Monitor Project. There's no cost for participants, and all information is treated as strictly confidential.

Farm performance analysis occurs in July and August each year, to coincide with the availability of farm data from the previous financial year.

Information required includes:

• all farm income and costs for the financial year taken – this can be taken from various sources such as receipts, cashbook outputs, payment advices from your livestock agent, wool broker and other sources
• livestock trading details – type, number and weights of animals bought and sold, and month and value of the trade)
• livestock breeding details – number of stock joined, number of young stock produced
• feed input and production – tonnes of hay or grain purchased or produced (and corresponding costs and income), and which enterprise the feed was fed to
• other inputs and costs collected – including fertiliser type and quantity, labour use (for example, casual or permanent), animal health, council rates, electricity, fuel
• farm assets – stock, feed inventory, land and farm machinery on hand at the beginning and end of the year
• farm liabilities – borrowed amounts at the beginning and end of the year and annual interest payments.

The Livestock Farm Monitor encourages farmer discussion groups to participate. The project can provide tailored group averages and reports for each group across Victoria.

Limited places are available. Individual farms and farm discussion groups who are interested in participating should email the project leader at fmp.victoria@agriculture.vic.gov.au for more information.

[Back to Top]

Registrations are now open for the Future Drought Fund’s 2023 Science to Practice Forum, 6-8 June 2023 and will be held online.

The annual forum is a showcase of the innovative tools and practices helping Australian farmers and communities respond to a changing climate and prepare for future drought.

Pip Courtney, award-winning television journalist and presenter of ABC TV’s Landline, will host this year’s online forum and facilitate engaging discussions.

Be sure to join the Farmers, Producers and Agricultural Advisors day on Wednesday 7 June. The day will include stories of drought and preparing for it, ‘call-to-action’ presentations, farmer and farm-advisor delivered sessions.

Register for the 2023 Science to Practice Forum via Eventbrite.

[Back to Top]

A range of support measures are available for flood and storm-affected farmers. Information about these measures can be found on the Agriculture Victoria website. For any urgent animal welfare needs, please contact 136 186.

Farmers and growers impacted by floods and storms between 6 October 2022 and 13 January 2023 are eligible to apply for financial support via the current flood recovery grants.

Please note that the application closing date for these programs has been extended until 4:00pm on 13 July 2023.

Available grants include:

• Primary Producer Recovery Grants: Up to $75,000 grants to cover the cost of recovery and get businesses up and running again. Note: This replaces the $10,000 Primary Producer Flood Clean–Up, Relief Grants announced on 19 October. Producers that have received a Primary Producer Flood Clean–Up Relief Grant of $10,000 can now apply for up to a further $65,000 under the Primary Producer Recovery Grant, bringing the total to $75,000.
• Rural Landholder Grants: Up to $25,000 grants to cover the costs of disaster impacts for small-scale producers.
• Primary Producer Concessional Loans: Up to $250,000 to restore or replace damaged equipment and infrastructure, or to cover short-term business expenses. This loan has been amended to allow primary producers who suffered a significant loss of income as a direct result of the 2022 Victorian floods and storms but who did not suffer direct damage to assets to apply for a concessional loan of up to $100,000.
• Primary Producer Transport Subsidies: Up to $15,000 to support the transport of emergency fodder or stock drinking water, and the movement of livestock.

To apply for support or for more information visit the Rural Finance website.

Agriculture Victoria is working with Victorian producers and industry to prepare for, respond to and recover from natural disasters (including floods and storms) through delivery of technical information and decision-making support services including:

• grazing, cropping and pasture management
• irrigation and horticulture system rehabilitation
• soil erosion management
• land management
• animal health and nutrition
• farm mapping and planning
• water quality
• weed management. 

Farmers are encouraged to contact the Agriculture Recovery team on 0427 694 185 (Mon - Fri between 8.30 am and 5 pm) or email recovery@agriculture.vic.gov.au

[Back to Top]

BWBL Networks contact: Alison Desmond, Project Leader M: 0409 424 274 E: alison.desmond@agriculture.vic.gov.au 

Entries are currently being received for the 2023 Australian Fleece Competition.  Run jointly by Nutrien Ag Solutions, the Australian Wool Testing Authority (AWTA) and Australian Sheep Breeders Association. The competition forms part of the Australian Sheep and Wool Show, held in Bendigo, 14-16 July.

This year will celebrate 22 years of the Australian Fleece Competition.

The Australian Fleece Competition is the largest fully measured fleece competition in the world.  The competition showcases a range of fleeces, representing every state and a wide range of breeds and microns.  The performance class will again be part of the competition to allow the benchmarking and display of fleeces shorn at six to eight month intervals.

At the conclusion of the competition, exhibitors have the opportunity to donate their fleeces to this year’s nominated charity, Down Syndrome Australia.  Thanks to the generosity of exhibitors, twenty-one national charities have shared in over $200,000 since the inception of the competition.

The closing date for entries to be received at the Brooklyn wool store is Friday, 2 June 2023.

Further details regarding the competition schedule, fleece tickets and online entry instructions are available on the following websites:

• www.nutrienagsolutions.com.au
• www.sheepshow.com

Autumn saving is a useful tool to manage grass growth at the break.  It involves deferring grazing after the autumn break until feed on offer (FOO) is sufficient to maintain enough feed until spring, when pasture growth increases dramatically.

The Glenthompson–Dunkeld BestWool/BestLamb (BWBL) group took part in a three-year demonstration to examine the practice of autumn saving and its impact on farm profitability between 2016 -2018.

The demonstration found;

• Autumn saving gives more certainty to producers to provide adequate nutrition to early and mid-winter lambing ewes.
• Autumn saving is a cost-effective method for producing extra feed. To be profitable, stocking rates need to be adequate to use the additional feed.

For more information about the practice of ‘autumn saving’ and the full demonstration results please follow the following links:

• Demonstration summary
• Final report
• 2021 Insights from two producers on how they successfully manage autumn saving every year.

[Back to Top]

BetterBeef Networks contact: Darren Hickey, Project Leader 

M: 0457 609 140 E: darren.hickey@agriculture.vic.gov.au

Guidelines for managing heifers and cows before calving

Careful management of nutrition of pregnant females in all trimesters of pregnancy pays dividends at calving time. Calf loss will be minimised and calving supervision can be kept to a minimum. Calving difficulties will be reduced by maintaining cows at condition score 3.0 (3.5 for heifers), and supplying adequate nutrition from joining to calving to prevent growth restrictions to reaching maximum pelvic size. This requires maintaining a condition score of 3.0–3.5 through to the point of calving.

Manage pre-calving carefully to minimise difficulties at calving

If females go outside these guidelines:

• increase or decrease pasture available or pasture quality before calving to ensure condition score of cows or liveweight of weaner heifers remains within the guidelines. As a guide, manage British breed heifers to gain an average weight gain of 0.6kg/day to a joining liveweight of 300kg, condition score 3.0 at 15 months of age
• consider supplementary feeding a high quality diet to cows when condition score is below the low 2s
• consider supplementary feeding heifers, including a protein source rich in rumen non-degradable protein, particularly if pasture is readily available but quality is low. This ensures weaner heifers gain weight at 0.6kg/day to reach target weights at three, six and nine months post-conception, as defined in Tool 5.1
• assess animal health status, particularly for internal parasites (worms and fluke tend to be a greater problem in younger animals), and correct if there is a problem, as described in Module 6: Herd health and welfare.

Achieve a balance required between:

• overfeeding (heifers in particular) in the last three months of pregnancy, as this will increase birth weight and subsequent dystocia
• underfeeding in the last trimester of pregnancy, as this will predispose to metabolic disorders like ketosis. Restriction of nutrition in the last trimester can increase dystocia rates, slow uterine contractions at birth, and delay return to oestrus post-calving.

Poor nutritional management of heifers and cows before calving can lead to a number of significant problems, including

• dystocia in heifers, due to inadequate pelvic size for the foetus, and due to over-fatness and uterine inertia in mature cows
• birthing difficulties, which may lead to stillborn calves, inability of the mother to re-conceive, inability of live calves to thrive, reduced ability of resulting heifer calves to reach target weights at mating, and possibly reduced mature weights as cows
• predisposition to various metabolic disorders, including milk fever (hypocalcaemia) and ketosis/pregnancy toxaemia (see MLA's More Beef from Pastures Module 6: Herd health and welfare) due to over- and underfeeding of cows before calving.

What to measure and when

• Condition score of cows every two weeks from 12 weeks before calving
• Weight and growth of heifers at three, six and nine months of pregnancy
• Use MLA's More Beef From Pastures Tool 3.5 of Module 3: Pasture utilisation as the basis for successfully matching seasonal pasture supply to the feed requirements of heifers.

Source: MLA

[Back to Top]