Angus Whyte, Chair of the NSW Central West and Rangelands regional committee of SAMRC

SHEEP meat and beef producers in the western New South Wales rangelands and South Australia’s north east are being urged to attend a forum to help drive the future direction of levy-payer funded research, development and adoption programs.

A Broken Hill regional consultation forum will be held in conjunction with Agfair on Friday and Saturday, May 6 and 7 — one of a series of Meat & Livestock Australia forums around Australia to consult directly with sheep meat and grass fed beef producer levy payers about RD&A priorities for 2017/18, specific to each region.

The forum will be hosted by the NSW Central West and Rangelands regional committee of the Southern Australia Meat Research Council (SAMRC).

The Goat Industry Council of Australia (GICA) is also collaborating with SAMRC at Agfair to gauge goat producer RD&A needs.

Chairman of the NSW Central West and Rangelands regional committee of SAMRC, Angus Whyte, Wyndham Station, Wentworth, said the forum will be an opportunity for sheep, cattle and goat producers to have direct input into where their levies should be directed.

“If we have strong input from producers early in setting R&D priorities, there’s a much higher probability of those outcomes being adopted on ground by producers.

“The forum is also about making sure producers are aware of all the R&D that is already being done and available to adopt on-farm,” Mr Whyte said.

MLA leader will attended Broken Hill forum

MLA managing director Richard Norton will attend the forum to meet with producers and hear their issues first-hand.

As well as an opportunity for input into the future directions of RD&A priorities, producers will hear from a number of guest speakers on a variety of topics including condition scoring in sheep, tools to manage total grazing pressure and new research into labour saving technologies like drones.

The forum is the first NSW Central West and Rangelands SAMRC event to be held as part of MLA’s new regional consultation model for RD&A investment from levies.

SAMRC covers NSW, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania, as well as the sheep areas of south eastern Queensland, and its members include sheepmeat and grassfed beef producers, MLA, CSIRO, agricultural departments, universities and agencies such as Local Land Services.

SAMRC is supported by seven regional committees, each chaired by a local producer, which gather input from local producers and producer networks on local RD&A needs.

The forum at Agfair, Broken Hill is broken into three sessions – two on Friday, May 6, and one session on Saturday morning, May 7. Agfair visitors are welcome at the stand at any time across the two days.

Details about the new regional consultation framework, SAMRC and its members, GICA and how grassfed beef, sheepmeat and goatmeat producers can get involved are available at www.mla.com.au/About-MLA/RD-Consultation and www.mla.com.au/About-MLA/About-your-levy/Goats

Source: MLA.