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 More than 400 people attended the annual the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association (NTCA) conference in Darwin last week.

The conference committee started running a photographic competition last year – the photo to your left is  titled “Muddy Love” and it was the overall winner of the competition.

I would say that if this entry is anything to go by, the entries were amazing.

We will add more photos as they come to hand.

Do you have a picture that you would like to share with us? Send it to info@cattlecountry.com.au and we will publish it on this site.

If there are people in the photo PLEASE remember to let us know who is in it.

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(L-R) Sarah-Jane McBean and Marie Muldoon are the ladies who put "Cows, Cooks and Casseroles" together.

Women’s contribution to the opening up of the Northern Territory frontier has long been the stuff of legends.

Part of their role was ordering the rations and working out how to make them last through the long periods of isolation that are still a reality today.

As a result, station women have developed a flair for innovation in their cooking and for the first time, their favorite recipes have been collected for a special publication, Cows, Cooks and Casseroles – A collection of recipes from bush women of the Northern Territory.

The book features sections including “spectacular smokos”, “give beef the day off” and “sublime salads and soups”. It is filled with recipes gathered by station women over the years – many that have been handed down from mother to daughter – and each comes with its own “connoisseur comment” from the contributor: Read the rest of this entry »

(from left) Dr Mark Trotter, Professor Jim Barber, Professor David Lamb and Craig Birchall (UNE Lecturer in Agronomy and Soil Science) in the field with the GPS collars.

A recent trial of global positioning system (GPS) tracking technology on Twynam Agriculture’s “Buttabone” property in Western NSW has shown that steers graze only a fraction of the paddock available to them.

“Most graziers realise that their cattle don’t use the paddocks evenly,” said Dr Mark Trotter from the University of New England’s Precision Agriculture Research Group, who is leading the research project. “However, using GPS technology we can now measure exactly how much time an animal spends in any given area.”

GPS collars developed at UNE, attached to steers grazing in herds in the “Buttabone” paddock, enabled the position of each animal to be logged every five minutes over a period of 12 days. After retrieving the collars, the position data were downloaded and used to create – for the first time – a stocking rate map. Read the rest of this entry »

The NextGen Ag Roadshow will be going ahead in Northern Victoria on the 28th - 30th March. It may be a bit out of reach for some of you, nonetheless a great opportunity (and lots of fun) for those of you who are aged between 18-30.

This initiative is 100% free and includes all transport and accommodation (yes, you did read that right- it’s free). I am sure you will agree that is very rare these days.

Applications close Friday the 12th of March. Click here for more information.

The efficacy of using DNA profiles to describe the profit generating traits in beef cattle is a hot topic in the seedstock industry.

Can the results be verified and will these tests replace EBVs as the industry’s main genetic evaluation tool?

The world’s largest beef breed organization, the American Angus Association, has taken the plunge and is now producing genomic-enhanced expected progeny differences (GE-EPDs) using information from a high-density whole genome scan with 50,000 markers.

Read the rest of this entry »

Middle East demand for Australian red meat was reinforced last week with a record contingent of Australian red meat exporters participating in the region’s largest food tradeshow – Gulfood.

Lachlan Bowtell, MLA Regional Manager – Middle East/North Africa, said the 22 exporters participating in the event from 21-24 February received enormous interest.

“The tradeshow allowed exporters to meet with current customers and set supply schedules for the coming 12 months. As well as cementing relationships with existing customers, there were plenty of new inquiries, including from non-traditional markets and products, including goatmeat,” Mr Bowtell said.

Read the rest of this entry »