Cattle king Peter Hughes locks horns with ‘anti-animal’ activists

One of Australia’s biggest cattle farmers has hit out at animal rights activists, labelling them as “not well informed”.

20/03/2019: (L-R) Michael Perich, Director, Leppington Pastoral Company, with Peter Hughes, Chief Executive Officer and Co-owner, Hughes Pastoral and Georgina Pastoral Company, at the Global Food Forum in Sydney on Wednesday. Hollie Adams/The Australian

One of Australia’s biggest cattle farmers, Peter Hughes, has hit out at animal rights activists, labelling them as “not well informed”.

Mr Hughes, whose family owns nine large cattle stations across Northern Australia running purebred wagyu cows and pedigree bulls, told The 2019 Global Food Forum, which is supported by The Australian and Visy, that the animal rights and anti-meat eating movement had the potential to damage the cattle industry.

“The anti-animal people, I don’t know where it is all heading. Hopefully the silent majority is understanding how it works and we need those [meat processing] jobs being done, and there’s so much of Australia away from the capital cities. Every piece of it is owned by someone and most people are doing a good job looking after it and protecting it. But you feel that half the world is against you, unfortunately.”

 

Leppington Pastoral director Michael Perich told the event he agreed with Mr Hughes and that his family’s business had more than 2000 student visitors in each in an effort to educate people where milk comes from and the steps the business takes to protect its cows.

“The animal movement group is quite challenging and we really need to stand up and confront it, and not hide behind what we do, and make sure what we do is always best practice.”

Mr Perich oversees an operation that milks about 11,000 cows daily as part of a dairy and agriculture concern that also includes a half-stake in the ASX-listed Freedom Foods (FNP).

Leppington and Freedom are part of the Australian Fresh Milk Holdings consortium that bought the Coomboona dairy business from Harvey Norman last year, making it to the largest dairy producer in Australia.

Mr Perich said the family could seek more opportunities to gain more scale in the near future. “We always think that when there are times of adversity there is opportunities, and there are properties that are coming up that we can make value out of.”

Mr Hughes said thought that while he also backed his company to make good acquisitions he worried that “in my experience, when things are really bad it is only the second rate places that come on to the market. Sometimes the really good ones come on the market at the top of the market … and they can be better buys than the other ones.”

He also said increasing compliance and complexity was making it harder for farmers, who have to manage their business during the day “and then work all night managing the red tape.

“So it becomes less and less attractive, and the next generation come along and think it is no good and it is easier to get a salary and be part of making the red tape, which is disappointing.”

Mr Hughes said his family has been fortunate in that the next generation has been keen to stick to the family business, while Mr Perich said his family had diversified across property and the housing industry and therefore younger generations options in terms of joining the business.

Mr Hughes said the drought had taken its toll, but he recently has had more cause for optimism “This is an extremely dry time. There’s some places in Queensland, even if you have no stock on it, are just completely devastated.

“But we have had some relief rain in the last week. Three inches of rain makes an enormous difference. As [Sidney] Kidman said 120 years ago, four inches of rain changes the whole game.”