Global investors to hear cattle producer’s bright idea
Queensland’s Natalie Engel has an idea to simplify the management of quality assurance paperwork.
A central Queensland producer has an idea that could potentially slash the amount of time farmers spend in the office.
Rolleston’s Natalie Engel will present this idea to a global audience at evokeAG, an inaugural international agrifood-technology event to be held in Melbourne next month.
She was selected as one of four finalists from across Australia in the Pitch Tent — Producer Problem category.
The international audience will include investors, corporate decision-makers and industry influencers.
Sunlight Grazing
NATALIE and her partner Chris Whiteman manage a 3966ha grassfed beef-branding and finishing operation at Rolleston, south of Emerald.
In the good times, Sunlight Grazing, owned by Chris and his parents, carries 1500 head of cattle.
They’re holding onto 1200, but if there’s no decent rain in the next few weeks the couple will look to reduce.
“It usually rains in January, but if it doesn’t, we’ll have to knock back another 50 breeders or steers,” she said.
Natalie said they were lucky to get rain in July and October of 2018 to keep them going, so the season “wasn’t too bad”.
Neighbours on three sides of their property had been affected by fires in the latter half of last year, but the couple had been lucky, with Chris only fighting a fire right on the boundary on Christmas Eve.
When this edition of the Rural Weekly caught up with Natalie, she’d ducked inside for a break from the heat of their summer muster.
Sunlight Grazing process their grass-fed EU cattle at Teys Australia in Biloela.
Like the majority of western Queensland graziers, the property has also felt the brunt of the vegetation management laws.
“Two years ago Chris saw it coming,” she said.
“We got our PMAV (property map of assessable vegetation) locked in and borrowed money from the bank to clear an extra 400 acres.
“But now we’ve got wattle that’s two years old and the blackcurrant is growing wild.
“We’ve been thinking about fencing in a herd of goats to clear it.”
Producer problem
HOSTED by AgriFutures Australia, the aim of evokeAG is to highlight, discuss and debate exciting developments surrounding the future of our food and how it will be produced.
With a background in feedlotting, agribusiness and ag-tech, Natalie’s identified a simple way for producers to manage quality assurance platforms.
“Currently we’re having to access multiple systems on a regular basis and trying to keep on top of it all without spending days sitting at a desk is tough,” she said.
“There’s lots of double-ups in forms and requirements.
“I know myself, gaining access to EUNVDs (European Union vendor declarations), MSA (Meat Standards Australia) forms and cattle health certificates online has sometimes held the truck up by an extra hour, because the current platform has a lot of issues.
Natalie said keeping track of animals when they were sold or purchased and all associated paperwork, not just in paper form, encompassed a huge amount of work.
“Just trucking a mob to the meatworks requires EUNVD, MSA, PCAS (Pasturefed Cattle Assurance System), grassland or an organic form,” she said.
“The cattle are in the yards the night before, scanned out as they walk onto the truck, whereby I rush back to the house and start collating paperwork.
“I cannot begin to fill out all the forms on the LPA (Livestock Production Assurance) website the day before because it applies the incorrect date.
“This can affect the trucking company and our business if we are audited in the future and it doesn’t match up with our farm diary, which is recorded at the end of every day.”
Natalie said one online platform linked to all QA accounts could be the solution.
“If all these forms could be accessed online via one login, that would allow tracking and compliance and the ability to search for the reference number if required,” she said.
“Inside that login, the PIC (property identification codes) of each property is used as the internal reference as each property has different standards that are met.
“This includes biosecurity and reference to JBAS (Johne’s Beef Assurance Score) levels.
“When producers have gone through the initial set-up and linked all their associated accounts, if there was a function that allowed for reports to be run, almost like an internal audit, which showed which sections of each standard may require attention.
“Paired with this would be the supporting documentation or section of the standard that was relevant to the initial question.
“If you could also include the ability to import individual animal data as well and link to movements that included purchases, sales, deaths, movement between other PICs within the operation, this would take away all the guesswork and manual searching that goes on when either a desk/on-site audit is conducted or a breach of the standard has occurred and a show cause notice arrives.”
Natalie said with the rate ag-tech was changing, producers were rapidly shifting away from paper records and towards cloud- based systems and storage.
“This is directly related to internet availability and capability, no more clicking on an email and going to get a cup of coffee while you wait for the download to finish,” she said.
“One online platform and app-based configuration to support it would make a huge difference.”
Head for business
NATALIE hails from Murwillumbah in northern New South Wales. Her passion for agriculture led her to study at Gatton College, near Toowoomba in southwest Queensland. Natalie said she had spoken to countless producers regarding data recording systems over the years and the issues they faced, sometimes on a daily basis. She realised there was a missing link between users and software/hardware companies. This information gap led Natalie to start her own independent business as a livestock data consultant. It’s a service-based platform designed to provide specific assistances to primary producers.
Natalie said she realised it was vital for producers to be able to access both on-farm and phone/email help to not only solve their technological issues but also assist with other mandatory QA requirements such as NLIS, EUCAS, PCAS, GAP, LPA and NFAS.
“When I put the pitch through to them (evokeAG) I had spent two hours in three different electronic systems just trying to get a mob out of here,” Natalie said.
“When I was in an agri-sales role the client would ring you up and keep asking you how things worked.
“They’d ring the support team but they didn’t understand. We’re just handing over these systems, spend one day training and there’s nothing to fill the gap.
“There’s not just one system and a lot is data-based. It all moves so quickly, it’s hard for anyone to keep up.”
EvokeAG
FARMERS could soon be monitoring their cattle using GPS trackers, checking electric fences via their mobile phone and increasing crop production with a special plastic mulch. These are just some of the global innovative ideas to be presented in the Pitch Tent at evokeAG, to be held in Melbourne on February19-20. The ideas will be assessed by an expert panel of judges for a chance to share in a prize pool of $35,000 plus prizes.
Agritech New Zealand executive director Peter Wren-Hilton said the calibre of Pitch Tent applicants far exceeded expectations in terms of the incredible innovation.
For more information about evokeAG, head to www.evokeag.com.
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