Shine Awards 2022: Young beef producer Bianca Tarrant of Our Cow wins Belief category

A woman from Baryulgil NSW whose meat delivery business has helped dozens of farmers is this year’s Belief winner. Meet the finalists.

The Weekly Times Shine Award for Belief goes to a rural woman who has a vision to change or enhance the world around them for the benefit of others.

One of six categories in the awards, which celebrate Australia’s rural women, the Belief honour goes to Our Cow co-founder Bianca Tarrant, who created a direct-to-consumer meat delivery business to help farmers be price setters, rather than price takers. Finalists are Vivienne McCollum from Toowoomba, Queensland, and Meagan Chivers from Mount Seymour, Tasmania. Read their stories:

2022 BELIEF WINNER: BIANCA TARRANT

Cattle farmer and meat company founder, Baryulgil, NSW

Farmers Bianca Tarrant and David McGiveron built their business Our Cow out of bush fires and drought delivering grass-fed and organic meat across Australia.

Cattle farming has been a baptism of fire for 29-year-old Bianca Tarrant.

But she has met the challenge with a fiery response of her own, creating her own meat subscription delivery service that has not only saved her Baryulgil NSW operation from going under, but created local jobs and new sales revenue for hundreds of other producers across Australia.

Originally a “beach girl” from Port Macquarie, Bianca and her partner, David McGiveron, created Our Cow in 2019, after the pressures of drought followed by bushfires put them under immense stress.

The young couple had bought their Baryulgil property in 2017, just before drought and then bushfires rocked the region.

Like many producers, Bianca and Dave struggled to feed their animals, and didn’t even know what they would eventually be paid for the cattle after they spent months rearing them.

“I had trouble comprehending we would work so long and so hard for an animal and we had no idea what we would get paid for it,” Bianca says

Bianca took on odd jobs and labouring work in an effort to support her farm’s cattle during those tough times, doing fencing and mowing lawns to keep the farm going.

She had an idea to start selling some of their own beef on social media, to keep themselves afloat, and it quickly spiralled into a business that is now bigger than they ever imagined.

Our Cow delivers meat from their herd, but is also supplied by beef, pork, lamb and chicken producers in their region.

“Demand was so strong we were able to on-board other farmers really quickly,” she says. “There are about 100 farmers that supply us consistently.”

Our Cow also has a boning room at Casino, employing 40 people, where carcasses are cut, packaged and then delivered nationwide.

Finally bouncing back from drought and fires, Bianca and Dave now run about 200 cattle on their farm.

“(Our cattle) are a small drop in the ocean of Our Cow now,” she says. “Still it is good to be able to guarantee us a price, and do the same for other farmers as well.”

For her foresight and determination to not just save her own farm and business, but help others do the same, Bianca Tarrant is the perfect winner of the 2022 Shine Award for Belief.

FINALIST: MEAGAN CHIVERS

Youth mental health counsellor, Mount Seymour, Tasmania

Eager barrel racer Meagan Chivers has been honoured in the Shine Awards for her work as a youth mental health worker in rural Tasmania. Picture: Jazz Hutchins

If you had told Meagan Chivers 20 years ago she would one day be making a lasting difference to the lives of the youth in rural Tasmania, she wouldn’t have believed it.

After returning to study as a mature-age student, the 37-year-old horsewoman is a now a counsellor with the Royal Flying Doctor Service’s youth mental health program, travelling hundreds of kilometres each week to offer young people an understanding ear and sound advice.

The days are long and the work is challenging – not to mention the juggle of also running a sheep and horse farm at Mount Seymour, north of Hobart. But one gets the distinct impression Meagan wouldn’t have it any other way.

“The most rewarding part is when you can meet a young person, and they’re really low, struggling with life’s challenges, and then after a few appointments they tell you how they’re doing well or feeling better,” she says.

Her role today is a far cry from where she started, making Tassie’s iconic Blundstone boots and working at a convenience store – but it was that job behind the counter that made her realise her passion.

“Everybody kept telling me, ‘you’re really easy to talk to, you should get into community services’,” she says.

It prompted Meagan to go back to school for her counselling qualifications, studying while also working.

“It was full-on, and my social life (went) out the window, but I knew this was my dream,” she says. Even now, she has to pinch herself to know it’s real.

“If somebody 20 years ago had told me that I’d be a qualified counsellor, a youth mental health worker for the RFDS, I would have said ‘whatever’,” she says.

“I’m just the little girl from Bothwell who makes boots.”

FINALIST: VIVIENNE McCOLLUM

Agriculture technology pioneer, Toowoomba, Queensland

DIT AgTech researcher Vivienne McCollum (right) and South Australian farmer Penny Beckey.

Australia’s livestock industry is on a mission to decrease its emissions, and technology pioneer Vivienne McCollum is determined to give them the tools to do so.

Vivienne is the co-lead on an innovative project that hopes to find a way to deliver methane-reducing feed additives to Australia’s vast grazing cattle herds that cover swathes of Outback country.

If successful, the technology could offer another tool to help cattle producers remain highly productive while also cutting emissions.

“What really drives us is we’re doing something that can really make a big impact on food security, and the environment,” Vivienne says.

The three-year project is a collaboration between DIT AgTech, Central Queensland University and Meat and Livestock Australia.

Its goal is create a method to feed emission-reducing dietary supplements to livestock that graze vast landholdings, and also measure their intake.

It is a complicated business that involves remote monitoring and creating a supplement that can be added to cattle’s drinking water.

“Most methane-reducing additives have only really looked at being used in an intensive situation, i.e. in dairy or feedlots,” Vivienne says.

“There’s only a couple million animals in the whole (27 million-head) cattle herd in Australia that are on a dairy or feedlot and 80 per cent are in rangelands.

“If we really want to make a big impact on methane reduction for the industry we need to be able to have a delivery mechanism to be able to put the methane reducing supplements out en masse.”

She says she has always been fascinated by science and is determined to improve the agriculture sector.

Her colleague Ally Gravolin says Vivienne has gone above and beyond in her work.

“Viv has such a great passion for the work that we are doing around sustainability and enabling farmers to produce more with less,” Ally says. “She has driven our methane reduction project from the ground up and her enthusiasm is obvious when she is talking about the research.”