Paddock to plate: Wild Grampians Lamb, Ararat, serves it up
THE family farm brand must take a stand, according to Ararat farmer Craig Hinchliffe, the brains behind a new paddock-to-plate lamb venture.
THE family farm brand must take a stand.
That’s according to Ararat farmer Craig Hinchliffe, the brains behind a new paddock-to-plate lamb venture that hopes to extract the best possible returns for family farmers.
Craig, a former army lieutenant colonel and international aid worker, has joined forces with his neighbours to establish Grampians Wild Lamb, which aims to find high-end customers for quality homegrown meat, supplied under a collective family farm arrangement.
Craig says the red meat industry “is not geared towards rewarding family farms for the excellent nutritional attributes of free-range pasture fed lamb, as industry powerbrokers are focused on generic production volume and supply chain economies of scale”.
Under the group’s rules all lambs must be sourced from pasture-based family farms — “not corporate farms” — and adhere strictly to Meat Standards Australia management practice relating to animal welfare.
Suppliers must also be members of their local Landcare group. “Analysis indicates that the average cost of a commodity generally settles at the average cost of production for the average producer,” Mr Hinchliffe said.
“When you have corporate producers and vertically integrated retailers feedlotting hundreds of thousands of animals in intensive finishing systems, (they are actually) driving down the average cost of production to a point where increasing numbers of small family farms are no longer economically viable.
“There are some amazing family farms doing some amazing stuff and the cost of real food reflects the time, energy, effort and expense that goes into maintaining the landscape and caring for animals.” Mr Hinchliffe, who turns off about 2500 lambs a year, said “half a dozen” suppliers had signed up and he was in the process of finding “top shelf” domestic and international customers.