Temora-based law firm Granleese & Co. held their second annual Farmers Forum on Thursday 20 August, with many members of the local agricultural industry gathering for the event. The focus of this year’s forum was on livestock, following on from their cropping-based event in September last year. Mel Gallagher from Granleese & Co. spoke after the forum and said it set out to achieve it’s goal of bringing local farmers together. “What I enjoyed most was hearing from people working across different areas of the agricultural industry and bringing those perspectives together in one afternoon,” Ms Gallagher said. “There is a real benefit in having people with different areas of knowledge and experience contributing to the conversation.” Four speakers took the stage to discuss the developments, opportunities and threats ongoing in their respective industries. Tom Shuttleworth from StockWatch was one of the speakers at the Farmers Forum. Tom runs a laboratory near Temora that specialises in worm testing and spoke about the importance of parasite management when dealing with livestock. He also discussed the innovations coming into his field, and that traditional methods remain most effective at this stage. “There are some new developments, some machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) developments coming into the industry,” Mr Shuttleworth said. “We’ve just got to be really careful of them, the marketing is extremely good, but there is nothing that compares currently to a lab result using visual microscopy, and there’s data that backs that up.” The other three speakers were Marty Moses from Moses & Son Woolbrokers in Temora, district vet Lara Mitchell from Local Land Services and event organiser Mel Gallagher from Granleese & Co. Mr Moses opened the forum by speaking about current market conditions in the wool industry. He highlighted ongoing technology that will see enhanced traceability from the paddock to the garment, and the development of active-wear style attire made from wool. Ms Gallagher then discussed the legal side of farming, touching on topics such as land use, native vegetation management and succession planning. Ms Mitchell focussed in on livestock health and disease, as well as managing biodiversity and the threats that different seasons can bring to animal health. The event aimed to gather people together as an information exchange on these matters. “It’s a great idea, obviously a lot of work goes into organising those days, so it was good to see people turning out for it,” Mr Shuttleworth said.
