Callen Thompson is a consultant with AgSTAR Projects, working with producers, advisors and industry professionals to improve on-farm outcomes through targeted extension.

Callen has held various roles agronomy and farm advisory roles in both the public and private sectors. Callen and his wife Maria also run a beef breeding and backgrounding operation in Condobolin, NSW.  

This webinar will cover:

• What opportunities exist in the Dairy-Beef supply chain.
• The key factors for profitably producing beef from dairy animals.
• The industry requirements to further develop a Dairy-Beef supply chain.

Date and time: 10 July 2024, 7.00pm AEST

This special edition episode features Dr Shane Thompson from Holbrook Vet Clinic, Ed Rigall from AgPro Management and Felicity Turner from Turner Agriservices.

In this episode we discuss the business, pasture and livestock management considerations when managing a late seasonal break or failed autumn period. 

Tanisha Shields from Agrista speaks to the specialist panel about the importance of assessing and managing business risk to make informed decisions to manage the failed autumn. We discuss how to conduct a supplementary feeding analysis, including which stock to feed and for how long and prioritisation of reducing numbers. The expert panel talk about what to consider to promote pasture growth during winter and into spring and the fertiliser budgeting implications for this season and looking ahead for next year.  We also cover the animal health and nutritional requirements during the winter period and how to manage lambing and calving with limited feed. Confinement feeding is discussed as a strategy to manage livestock and pastures through to spring.

Sally Martin is the principal of SheepMetriX, a consultancy business servicing seedstock and commercial livestock producers.

Sally brings over 30 years of experience in farm management, animal health, reproduction, genetic selection and breeding program design.

This webinar will cover:

• Identifying breeding and production objectives and understanding what data is needed to inform these
• How to us eID to efficiently collect and use data
• The value of data in making informed management decisions to achieve breeding and production objectives.

Date and time: 19 June 2024, 7.00pm-8.00pm AEST

Anne Collins is the principal of AC Ag Consulting and has nearly 30 years’ experience working with livestock industries in Australia.

Anne’s particular areas of interest include sheep breeding and genetics, reproduction efficiency, technology adoption and data management. She recently completed a three-year MLA funded PDS project “Maximising Dorper Reproductive Performance”, working with a group of producers on the far west coast of SA to find ways to increase the reproductive efficiency of their self-replacing Dorper flocks.

In 2022, Anne joined forces with the University of Adelaide to successfully tender for the MLA Donor Company funded project, “Quantifying and improving reproductive performance of shedding sheep”.

This webinar will cover:

• Understanding weaning rate as a key profit driver in a shedding sheep business
• Fit to join assessment of ewes and rams
• Cost effective management practices to increase reproduction rate.

Date and time: 8 May 2024, 7:00pm AEDT

Dr Jason Condon is Associate Professor in Soil Science at Charles Sturt University and has taught and researched soils there since 1996. His research portfolio includes projects on fertiliser management, carbon sequestration, nitrogen cycling, salinity management in Vietnam and the formation and management of soil acidity in Australian crop and pasture systems in collaboration with NSW DPI, Holbrook landcare Network, FarmLink and Central West Farming Systems.  

This webinar covers:

• Implementing improved soil sampling intervals to enable better decisions about liming. 
• Understanding the movement and effect of liming to address lower soil acidity layers.
• Management of acid soils removes one of the manageable constraints of the production system. 

Date and time: 10th April at 7.00pm AEST

Shawn is an agricultural scientist and Senior Research Fellow at the Gulbali Institute at Charles Sturt University. He completed a PhD considering the context of grazing reproducing ewes on dual-purpose wheat and has since been part of several other research projects investigating the utilisation of dual-purpose crops in farming systems and the prevention of metabolic diseases in sheep associated with crop grazing.

This webinar covers:

Dual-purpose crops offer producers the opportunity to increase the profitably of mixed-farming enterprises, but they require strategic management to achieve optimal grazing and grain yield.

Date and time: 13th March at 7.00pm AEST

Cam Nicholson is a director of Nicon Rural Services, a consulting business near Geelong working with the grazing and cropping industries.

Cam has worked in pasture agronomy and soils for 35 years and has been involved in many farmer programs for the GRDC, MLA, Landcare and the current Future Drought Fund.  He provides consultancy advice to farmers and lectures on animal and pasture systems at Marcus Oldham College. His most recent work has focussed on understanding and discussing risk in farming businesses, carbon accounting and decision making.

He and his wife Fiona run a 400 ha beef and sheep farm on the Bellarine Peninsula turning off cattle for the long fed feedlot market and fine wool.

The webinar covers:

• Understanding carbon within agriculture and grazing businesses
• The carbon space is rapidly evolving, how should this be approach into the future?
• The importance of focussing on improving emissions intensity within the short term
• What can be done within a farm business now to improve emissions intensity?
• The importance of due diligence when considering carbon farming schemes

Date and time: 14 February 2024, 7.00pm AEDT

Sally Murfet is the Chief Inspiration Officer at Inspire AG – a renowned people and culture consultancy 100% focused on the Australian agriculture industry.

Inspire AG supports clients through leadership development, team growth, performance management, succession planning, and strategic business planning.

Sally believes that people are the power of agriculture.

The webinar covers:

• Understanding how to manage and mitigate internal and external factors that influence agriculture’s ability to attract, retain and develop talent.
• How self-leadership and management practices affect an employer’s ability to manage and motivate teams.
• The need to create a positive and inclusive culture in order to attract talented employees who align with your vision, mission and values.
• How ‘employer branding’ in a candidate-short market makes your farm business an attractive choice.
• The importance of communication, relationships, and generational understanding in running a successful and profitable business.

Date and time: 10 January 2024, 7.00pm AEDT

John is a business management professional with extensive experience in agricultural business management consultancy and production agriculture (agronomy).

John has a proven understanding of the drivers of productivity and profitability in broadacre agriculture. John assists clients to develop and implement strategies that improve operational performance and deliver increased financial returns.

John is the Director of Agrista located in Wagga Wagga.

The webinar covers:

• When the good times roll it is not uncommon to lose business discipline – particularly around cost control.
• Now is the time to re-focus.
• Managers with a disciplined approach to business management still generate good profits when commodity prices fall.
• The key to driving a margin during times of low commodity prices is to focus on cost of production and production

Dr Jillian Kelly is the founder of Animal Health and Nutrition Consulting, a company she started in 2022 after almost 20 years as a production animal veterinarian in the private and government sectors. 

This webinar sees her discuss the different types of containment feeding systems, the pros and cons of containment feeding and considerations with regards to livestock management, nutrition, and animal health. 

The webinar covers:

• Containment feeding as a proactive management strategy for drought, fire, flood or to meet production targets
• How containment feeding areas can be low cost and versatile
• The need for careful planning in establishing confinement feeding areas
• Attention to detail with regards to nutrition and management to achieve good results 
  
  

Spring is generally a time when pasture supply exceeds demand. This webinar features Pinion Advisory Partner Basil Doonan, who outlines ways to deal with the surplus, while better utilising feed to reduce waste.

The webinar covers:

• Measurement – pasture supply and animal demand
• Dealing with surplus
• Maintaining persistency and quality
• Prioritising feed based on animal needs
• Dealing in liveweight
• Marginal cost of conserving and feeding
  

The webinar covers:

• not meeting target market specifications can impact your profitability
• selection and breeding programs can influence your ability to hit your target market more consistently and efficiently
• to use all the data, feedback, and tools to assess your performance and make improvements to your breeding program.
  
  
  

This webinar features Phil Graham, of Graham Advisory, who presents a current seasonal update and implications of this for producers.

The webinar covers:

• How to assess your exposure to a dry spring because the impact across southern Australia will be variable this year.
• What online resources are available to help producers assess current soil moisture?
• How to make the most of a below average spring through better pasture quality?
• The benefits of a dry summer such as lowering worm burden on pastures.

This webinar features Mick Hay of Rimfire Resources, who discusses farm labour and how to attract and retain good staff.

The webinar covers:

• What you need to prioritise to recruit for retention?
• How to attract staff in a candidate driven market? The current unemployment rate is at 3.6% and not predicted to rise above 4.6% for next 3-4 years.
• Workforce skill sets are changing – how will this impact your farm business?
• Employees want to work for employers of choice – how brand, reputation and social impact can help you become an employer of choice?