September 4, 2014

The academic foundations of future sheep research projects are now on file in perpetuity, with detailed research papers from the Sheep CRC to be permanently housed on the Livestock Library. The Livestock Library provides one-stop digital access to a wide range of Australian scientific publications, conference proceedings and reports on sheep and cattle research. It was established by the Cooperative Research Centre for Sheep Industry Innovation (Sheep CRC) and the Beef CRC with the aim

WAFarmers has received correspondence from Transport Minister Dean Nalder in response to two previous letters on the future of Tier 3 lines. The Minister has advised that Main Roads WA (MRWA) undertakes regular inspections of State and Local roads in the Wheatbelt to monitor the conditions of the roads, and the shire can contact MRWA should it consider funding inadequate. Given this information, WAFarmers urged any members who notice roads in their area which are

Ram buyers have been warned to avoid compromising their breeding objectives by integrating objective measurement data into their buying strategy. With the ram sale season underway, Department of Agriculture and Food senior research officer Johan Greeff urged producers to use Australian Sheep Breeding Values (ASBVs) to ensure their ram purchases fitted their flock’s breeding strategy. The department has contributed more than a decade of research to the development of ASBVs, which predict how an animal’s

A teleconference for the WAFarmers Grains Council was held at the beginning of the week to deliberate on the future of grains contracts for growers. The council discussed the possibility of modifying the current contracts to better protect growers entering contract negotiations, especially regarding dispute resolutions. At this stage, more investigation is required to determine whether enough growers are supportive of the idea and if updating grower contracts to fulfil grower requests will be achievable. 

The WAFarmers Grains Council met at the beginning of the week to consider the recent media surrounding GM crops. An article in the West Australian discussed the possibility of repealing the GM Crops Free Areas Act 2003 which would remove some legislation on GM crops in Western Australia. In addition to the Gene Technology Regulator in WA, there would still be an overarching national legislation in place to regulate GM policy. The Grains Council showed

On September 1, the WAFarmers Grains Section made a submission to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) regarding Co-operative Bulk Handling’s (CBH’s) proposed changes to their long term capacity allocation process. Two staff members from CBH joined a teleconference with the Grains Council to provide details of their proposal to the ACCC, requesting amendment to its undertaking which gives exporters greater assurance for grain capacity. WAFarmers Grains Council supported the application as being sufficiently