Monday December 7th. I am writing my final blog of my New Zealand/Australia experience as we fly from Dubai to London. We have been away from home for six weeks (rain everyday in Wales from what we understand) and are eager to be reunited with family and friends. It has been an incredible journey that I have been fortunate enough to share with Sheila, which will enable us to recount our experiences in the years to come. We have enjoyed generous hospitality, openness with regard to farming practices and an appreciation of the differing challenges and opportunities that face farmers on the other side of the world.
I have approached this journey, and ‘study’, with a commitment to learning best practice in an animal welfare context, within the pastoral systems of Australasia. I now have the challenge of deciphering and trawling through the notes, recorded interviews, and literature collected along the way. Animal welfare throughout the world is a continual journey of incremental improvement, and I have come across some great navigators during the last few weeks.
I hope you have enjoyed reading the blog as much as I have enjoyed writing and reflecting on each day. I am aware that my mother has been an avid reader (as you would expect) and also Moss Jones of FAWL, who sent me a rather derogatory e mail regarding my white and spindly legs! Other than that, well who knows……
I have numerous meetings this week associated with some of my off farm commitments. I hope that the expected ‘jet lag’ will not limit my reintroduction into the interesting, but sometimes robust world of Welsh agri politics!
Diolch yn fawr.
Huw.
Monday, 7 December 2009
Nearly at journey's end
Saturday 5th and Sunday 6th December. In 1901 the six colonies of Australia decided to form a nation, and after much bickering Canberra was built between Sydney and Melbourne, 2000 feet above sea level and surrounded by mountains. An American architect, called Walter Burley Griffin was hired to design the new city which today is home to 300,000 people, mainly diplomats, politicians, and civil servants. (Those people that ‘are far removed from the soil’ as the farmers in Dubbo and Greenethorpe noted with some feeling!)
We made the most of our day and a half in the city visiting the Australian War Memorial which was built between 1925 and 1941 as a tribute to those who died in World War 1. It also houses Australia’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Australia has always supported Britain during time of conflict, even though they have only been directly attacked once when the Japanese bombed Darwin during the WW2. We found the whole visit moving especially the hall which individually described the courage and sacrifice of the Victoria Cross recipients. An Australian SAS soldier was the last to receive that ultimate recognition of courage during the recent and ongoing conflict in Afghanistan.
We also spent some time in the National Portrait Gallery, and also the National Gallery which had a comprehensive collection of Aboriginal Art. The Aborigines fate is of grave concern to modern Australia, and the Government is still striving to find the best way to involve and preserve an ancient culture which has been severely victimised in the past.
We flew from a quiet sedate Canberra, to a vibrant and busy Sydney for our final flight home to London via Dubai.
We made the most of our day and a half in the city visiting the Australian War Memorial which was built between 1925 and 1941 as a tribute to those who died in World War 1. It also houses Australia’s Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Australia has always supported Britain during time of conflict, even though they have only been directly attacked once when the Japanese bombed Darwin during the WW2. We found the whole visit moving especially the hall which individually described the courage and sacrifice of the Victoria Cross recipients. An Australian SAS soldier was the last to receive that ultimate recognition of courage during the recent and ongoing conflict in Afghanistan.
We also spent some time in the National Portrait Gallery, and also the National Gallery which had a comprehensive collection of Aboriginal Art. The Aborigines fate is of grave concern to modern Australia, and the Government is still striving to find the best way to involve and preserve an ancient culture which has been severely victimised in the past.
We flew from a quiet sedate Canberra, to a vibrant and busy Sydney for our final flight home to London via Dubai.
Sunday, 6 December 2009
Final meetings in Canberra
3rd and 4th December. After the few days of relaxation in Port Douglas it was challenging to re engage in a program of meetings set up by the Australian Goverment with senior agricultural and welfare practitioners in Canberra. We are indepted to Dr. Peter Thornber for facilitating the meetings over these two days, and taking time out from his busy schedule to host our visit. We found the one to one dialogues valuable and engaging with again valuable material gathered for my Nuffield report.
We were also fortunate to be in Canberra for the launch of Sam Archer's (Australian Nuffield Scholar 2008) seminar on Market Based Ecosystem Services - A proposed National Model. We had a great Chinese meal on Thursday night in the company of Jim Geltch, Nuffield CEO and Sam and his wife Sabrina.
Meeting details 3rd December
Meeting Objectives:
Exchange information on current UK Farm Animal Welfare priorities.
Explain Australia’s policy approach for improving animal welfare outcomes through the AAWS and its implementation.
Discuss current and emerging global issues.
Discuss opportunities for Australia and UK to work together to improve capacity building in animal welfare.
Meeting Outcomes:
A shared understanding of welfare issues and approaches in Australia and of UK’s animal welfare agenda.
Participants List:
Australian Government
Peter Thornber, Manager Australian Animal Welfare Strategy (AAWS) & Communications Animal Welfare Unit (DAFF)
Jim Paradice, Manager International and Live Exports, Animal Welfare Unit
Tim Lester, Senior Policy Officer, Australian Animal Welfare Strategy & Communications Animal Welfare Unit
Dr Kevin Doyle, National Veterinary Director, Australian Veterinary Association
Huw Davies, Chair, Ruminants Standing Committee, Farm Animal Welfare Council
Meeting details Friday 4th December
National Farmers’ Federation Building
14-16 Brisbane Avenue, Barton, Canberra
Meeting Objectives:
Exchange information on current UK Farm Animal Welfare priorities.
Industry perspective on animal welfare.
Discuss current and emerging global issues.
Discuss opportunities for Australia and UK to work together.
Meeting Outcomes:
A shared understanding of welfare issues and approaches in Australia and of UK’s animal welfare agenda.
Participant’s List
Peter Thornber, DAFF
Huw Davies
Ron Cullen, Executive Director, SheepMeat Council of Australia
Greg Weller, Executive Director, WoolProducers Australia
Ben Fargher, CEO, National Farmers’ Federation
We were also fortunate to be in Canberra for the launch of Sam Archer's (Australian Nuffield Scholar 2008) seminar on Market Based Ecosystem Services - A proposed National Model. We had a great Chinese meal on Thursday night in the company of Jim Geltch, Nuffield CEO and Sam and his wife Sabrina.
Meeting details 3rd December
Meeting Objectives:
Exchange information on current UK Farm Animal Welfare priorities.
Explain Australia’s policy approach for improving animal welfare outcomes through the AAWS and its implementation.
Discuss current and emerging global issues.
Discuss opportunities for Australia and UK to work together to improve capacity building in animal welfare.
Meeting Outcomes:
A shared understanding of welfare issues and approaches in Australia and of UK’s animal welfare agenda.
Participants List:
Australian Government
Peter Thornber, Manager Australian Animal Welfare Strategy (AAWS) & Communications Animal Welfare Unit (DAFF)
Jim Paradice, Manager International and Live Exports, Animal Welfare Unit
Tim Lester, Senior Policy Officer, Australian Animal Welfare Strategy & Communications Animal Welfare Unit
Dr Kevin Doyle, National Veterinary Director, Australian Veterinary Association
Huw Davies, Chair, Ruminants Standing Committee, Farm Animal Welfare Council
Meeting details Friday 4th December
National Farmers’ Federation Building
14-16 Brisbane Avenue, Barton, Canberra
Meeting Objectives:
Exchange information on current UK Farm Animal Welfare priorities.
Industry perspective on animal welfare.
Discuss current and emerging global issues.
Discuss opportunities for Australia and UK to work together.
Meeting Outcomes:
A shared understanding of welfare issues and approaches in Australia and of UK’s animal welfare agenda.
Participant’s List
Peter Thornber, DAFF
Huw Davies
Ron Cullen, Executive Director, SheepMeat Council of Australia
Greg Weller, Executive Director, WoolProducers Australia
Ben Fargher, CEO, National Farmers’ Federation
Great Barrier Reef
Friday 27th November – Wednesday 2nd December. We had a 12 p.m. flight to catch from Canberra to Cairns via Brisbane. I am ultra cautious with timings and therefore I was rather concerned when Julie coolly told us that she had an appointment with her bank manager at 8 a.m. and that we would be leaving Greenethrope at 9 a.m. That would be fine if the journey did not normally take 2½ hours (if you have no hold ups)!! It was the most stressful few hours of my trip with us eventually arriving at the terminal with 10 minutes to spare. The laid back Julie and amused Sheila seemed to revel in my obvious discomfort!
Our ultimate destination was Port Douglas, 80 km north of Cairns on the Queensland coast. We were moving from the dry heat of Dubbo/Greenethorpe to the humid heat of tropical Australia. Queensland is known as the place where Australia goes on holiday and has the incredible natural wonder of the Great Barrier Reef on its coast line. During the 1800’s the area would not be your favoured destination as it was home to some of the worst convicts in Australia’s penal system.
I did not take much convincing to include these few days of leisure in our itinerary. Sheila’s argument of “when we are older and greyer, we will not want to reflect on another abattoir visit, but rather the experience of seeing the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef” was a fairly easy one to agree with whole heartedly!
The Great Barrier Reef is often described as Australia’s crowning glory and stretches 1300 miles in a mosaic of more than 2900 distinct reefs covering 90,000 square miles. We experienced the reef in all its wonder by taking a 35 minute helicopter flight 55 km offshore to a diving platform. The flight took us over the Daintree tropical forest, a home for crocodiles, hence the ‘flight over’, rather than the ‘walk through’.
The experience on the reef, like many things on this trip is difficult to describe in words. We had the chance to snorkel in clear blue sea with the incredible coral formations just below the surface, and a colourful spectrum of fish swimming within touching distance. Sheila had the fortunate experience of stroking a two foot long fish which came close to her with the encouragement of a diver swimming below where we were snorkeling. A memorable few hours, with the long boat ride back to port in a catamaran giving us time to collect our thoughts and savour one of the most beautiful parts of the world.
We left Port Douglas, refreshed, and having enjoyed the laid back approach to life of this sleepy tourist destination.
Our ultimate destination was Port Douglas, 80 km north of Cairns on the Queensland coast. We were moving from the dry heat of Dubbo/Greenethorpe to the humid heat of tropical Australia. Queensland is known as the place where Australia goes on holiday and has the incredible natural wonder of the Great Barrier Reef on its coast line. During the 1800’s the area would not be your favoured destination as it was home to some of the worst convicts in Australia’s penal system.
I did not take much convincing to include these few days of leisure in our itinerary. Sheila’s argument of “when we are older and greyer, we will not want to reflect on another abattoir visit, but rather the experience of seeing the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef” was a fairly easy one to agree with whole heartedly!
The Great Barrier Reef is often described as Australia’s crowning glory and stretches 1300 miles in a mosaic of more than 2900 distinct reefs covering 90,000 square miles. We experienced the reef in all its wonder by taking a 35 minute helicopter flight 55 km offshore to a diving platform. The flight took us over the Daintree tropical forest, a home for crocodiles, hence the ‘flight over’, rather than the ‘walk through’.
The experience on the reef, like many things on this trip is difficult to describe in words. We had the chance to snorkel in clear blue sea with the incredible coral formations just below the surface, and a colourful spectrum of fish swimming within touching distance. Sheila had the fortunate experience of stroking a two foot long fish which came close to her with the encouragement of a diver swimming below where we were snorkeling. A memorable few hours, with the long boat ride back to port in a catamaran giving us time to collect our thoughts and savour one of the most beautiful parts of the world.
We left Port Douglas, refreshed, and having enjoyed the laid back approach to life of this sleepy tourist destination.
Tuesday, 1 December 2009
Greenethorpe and a fellow Nuffield
Wednesday 25th and Thursday 26th November. We started our three hour journey south to Greenethorpe by stopping for a coffee/drinking chocolate/smoothie at a drive in at Dubbo. I hoped that Lyn could drink coffee and drive at the same time…she reassured me by saying that she could eat cereal and drive at the same time. It wasn’t long until I managed to take over the wheel!
The drive took us through some incredibly dry countryside, and we were reminded that this area has, and is suffering from a severe drought. The temperature was consistently above 30˚C with reports of 43˚C in Greenethorpe the week before. It was very surreal to stop at a little coffee shop for a break and experience a Christmas tree in the corner, and ‘I am dreaming of a White Christmas’ being the background music! Lyn was a great companion during our journey and we were very appreciative of her six hour taxi service!
We arrived with Julie in the afternoon and it was a happy reunion as she had stayed in Wales with us during the Royal Welsh and the UK part of her Nuffield study. We had also travelled together with all the 2009 Nuffield scholars from all over the world in early spring from London, through France to Brussels. Julie manages 2100 acres jointly with her brother David and parents. The farm consists of 1000 acres of cropping and 1100 acres of pasture which stocks 1000 ewes with a lamb weaning percentage of 148%. Lambs are weaned at 12 weeks onto lucerne, followed by wheat stubble and eventually supplemented by grain and silage as the summer heat takes all the green cover and turns the area into a yellow flat plain.
Julie has overall responsibility for the ewe flock and aims to sell all the male lambs at an average carcass weight of 23kg. All the ewe lambs that reach a target live weight of 45kg are put to the ram with the empty lambs at scanning often being sold at a carcass weight of 30kg. Julie sells these lambs to an abattoir that does not penalize on fat but just pays on weight!! Julie has experimented with a number of breeds including Coopworth, Corriedale, Finn and East Friesland. She covers the ewes with a Dorset Ram. Footrot has been eradicated in the area, and is a notifiable disease. With around 20 inches of rain annually, there is at least one advantage to the dry conditions.
Our visit was enhanced by some fellow lodgers during our stay. Darren who drove a combine, and was coming to the end of his harvesting travels from Queensland down to New South Wales, and Glen and Nicole who were a young couple who had finished their grain harvest at home and were hoping to make some extra cash picking cherries on the local fruit farms. Julie and her brother operated a big baling operation and I came across one of the biggest John Deere tractors I had ever seen, making the one at home seem a bit of a toy.
We followed Julie to one of her baling jobs which was to bale some of the straw behind Darren’s 36 foot header. The job was rather dubious because the harvest was poor yielding under 1t/Ha of grain and 0.8 bales per Ha of straw. Julie’s crop had been a much more respectable 2t/ha of grain. Many of the fields were in excess of 50 Ha.
We also had the pleasure of meeting two of Julie’s neighbours, Rodney Watt and Ian McColl who coincidentally both sat on the Sheep Council for Australia. They had me at a disadvantage during our lengthy discussions in that they were used to the 30˚C+ heat while I was wilting by the minute under the glaring sun and the persistent flies. Rodney is a recognized breeder of rams (Poll Dorset and White Suffolk) while Ian is currently Sheepmeat Committee Chairman for NSW Farmers Association. I was given a great insight into an Australian sheep farmer’s perspective on farming in a dry, arid climate where water shortage is common, government legislation, farm assurance, and lamb marketing.
We must have brought some luck to the area because at tea time the heavens opened and an inch of rain fell in a few hours. This had the effect of everyone (farmers, combine drivers, lorry drivers etc) all retiring to the local pub for some great food and the inevitable ‘stubbies’. (bottled beer)
We had a great time with Julie and her family, and wish her well with her Nuffield study which will take her to New Zealand next week.
The drive took us through some incredibly dry countryside, and we were reminded that this area has, and is suffering from a severe drought. The temperature was consistently above 30˚C with reports of 43˚C in Greenethorpe the week before. It was very surreal to stop at a little coffee shop for a break and experience a Christmas tree in the corner, and ‘I am dreaming of a White Christmas’ being the background music! Lyn was a great companion during our journey and we were very appreciative of her six hour taxi service!
We arrived with Julie in the afternoon and it was a happy reunion as she had stayed in Wales with us during the Royal Welsh and the UK part of her Nuffield study. We had also travelled together with all the 2009 Nuffield scholars from all over the world in early spring from London, through France to Brussels. Julie manages 2100 acres jointly with her brother David and parents. The farm consists of 1000 acres of cropping and 1100 acres of pasture which stocks 1000 ewes with a lamb weaning percentage of 148%. Lambs are weaned at 12 weeks onto lucerne, followed by wheat stubble and eventually supplemented by grain and silage as the summer heat takes all the green cover and turns the area into a yellow flat plain.
Julie has overall responsibility for the ewe flock and aims to sell all the male lambs at an average carcass weight of 23kg. All the ewe lambs that reach a target live weight of 45kg are put to the ram with the empty lambs at scanning often being sold at a carcass weight of 30kg. Julie sells these lambs to an abattoir that does not penalize on fat but just pays on weight!! Julie has experimented with a number of breeds including Coopworth, Corriedale, Finn and East Friesland. She covers the ewes with a Dorset Ram. Footrot has been eradicated in the area, and is a notifiable disease. With around 20 inches of rain annually, there is at least one advantage to the dry conditions.
Our visit was enhanced by some fellow lodgers during our stay. Darren who drove a combine, and was coming to the end of his harvesting travels from Queensland down to New South Wales, and Glen and Nicole who were a young couple who had finished their grain harvest at home and were hoping to make some extra cash picking cherries on the local fruit farms. Julie and her brother operated a big baling operation and I came across one of the biggest John Deere tractors I had ever seen, making the one at home seem a bit of a toy.
We followed Julie to one of her baling jobs which was to bale some of the straw behind Darren’s 36 foot header. The job was rather dubious because the harvest was poor yielding under 1t/Ha of grain and 0.8 bales per Ha of straw. Julie’s crop had been a much more respectable 2t/ha of grain. Many of the fields were in excess of 50 Ha.
We also had the pleasure of meeting two of Julie’s neighbours, Rodney Watt and Ian McColl who coincidentally both sat on the Sheep Council for Australia. They had me at a disadvantage during our lengthy discussions in that they were used to the 30˚C+ heat while I was wilting by the minute under the glaring sun and the persistent flies. Rodney is a recognized breeder of rams (Poll Dorset and White Suffolk) while Ian is currently Sheepmeat Committee Chairman for NSW Farmers Association. I was given a great insight into an Australian sheep farmer’s perspective on farming in a dry, arid climate where water shortage is common, government legislation, farm assurance, and lamb marketing.
We must have brought some luck to the area because at tea time the heavens opened and an inch of rain fell in a few hours. This had the effect of everyone (farmers, combine drivers, lorry drivers etc) all retiring to the local pub for some great food and the inevitable ‘stubbies’. (bottled beer)
We had a great time with Julie and her family, and wish her well with her Nuffield study which will take her to New Zealand next week.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
