Kylie Stretton Archibull Questions

Below is a selection of questions that the Archibull team came up with for Kylie Stretton. We hope that you enjoy her wonderful and extremely thought-provoking answers as much as we did!

How do you deal with negative stereotypes that the media often portrays farmers as? 

I deal with these stereotypes by getting out there and proving them wrong!  It’s a lot easier these days with social media to be seen and heard.  Before we had things like this we very much kept to ourselves as it is hard for us just to pack up and go somewhere.  We have a very very small farm with over 50 animals in our care, most need daily attention so it is hard to go and leave them, lucky we have a great neighbour that will help out. 



Sophia, Maryellen and Mitchell

So social media is a perfect avenue for me.     So many of our stereo types are very contradicting.  For example we are considered uneducated and backwards but people complain about all the farming children going to posh private schools.  Or that we are  all rich with oodles of money, but people have visions of us being grubby and dirty and having no indoor plumbing! 

When I do “go out in public” I make sure I’m neatly dressed, well spoken, but also bright and cheery because we also have an image of being whingers. The media usually only shows us when things have gone terribly wrong and we’re struggling to deal with that.

How do other industries such as supermarkets and marketing affect your farm?

There is a common saying “farmers are price takers and not price makers”  which means we don’t have a lot of control over what price is offered to us.  With beef we can look around for better prices, but they are usually fairly similar across the board. 

One of our biggest issues with selling our beef is things that happen overseas.  65% of the beef we produce in Australia goes overseas, we are the 2^nd largest exporter of beef behind Brazil (and the 7^th largest beef producer in the world, producing 4% of the world’s supply) For example after the massive Japanese disasters, Japan cut back their “orders” so Australia was left with a lot of beef that they couldn’t sell, and that brings prices and demand down. 

Also the high Australian Dollar has a huge impact, making our meat more expensive so it’s harder to market.  When USA had the BSE (mad cow outbreak) Japan stopped buying their beef and bought more of ours, but recently they have started buying USA beef again which means the demand for ours goes down. 

Weather patterns have an effect such as La Nina and El Nino.  La Nina is good for usually because it eases drought and it’s hard to produce top quality beef in a drought, so while we have La Nina, South America which is a major beef producing region have El Nino and have drought so struggle to produce so much beef which boosts us and vice versa.  Also the major droughts in Texas lately have meant the USA beef production is down.  So one country’s downfall is our gain which is a bit sad, but it all goes in cycles.

Taking Missy Moo for a ride..

Another big factor is the cost of “processing a beast” in Australia.    This means when it goes to the meatworks or abattoirs and is turned from a live animal to beef.  Australian wages are extremely high (average Australian wage is $31p/hr, USA average age is $19p/h).  So the cost of processing a beast in Australia is 2 times higher than in the USA and 2.5 times higher than in Brazil, making our meat more expensive.  John Berry from JBS Australia (Australia’s largest meat processors) puts this down to higher government charges and taxes and wages.  These figures were before Carbon Tax came in so I’m not sure how much that has changed things yet.

A good way to demonstrate this is:  For a beast (beast is industry jargon as they aren’t all “cows” as they are only female, it’s not a derogatory term) that is sold “live weight” (which means they are alive) an average price would be around $1.70/kg.  If we sell them “dead weight”, “over the hooks” or “carcase weight” (which means that the price is worked out as the beast is being processed and you are payed for the weight what is left after hide, skull, hooves and internal organs are removed) we get paid about $2.50-$3.00/kg.  I don’t buy beef very often at all (we eat our own) but I think some prices are $30/kg which can be ten times higher than what the farmer is paid! 

Is it harder to get people to buy your products compared to larger companies that have more resources available?

Sometimes yes, it is harder.  Because we only have a very small farm we have an off farm income, where my husband Shane works as a livestock agent.  This means that his clients can ring him and say they have this type of cattle to sell, can he please find them the best price.  Or they might ring him looking for cattle to buy and he will use his networks to track some down.  Just like real estate agent but with cattle! 


Our team- with wool!

For example someone rang him with three head of cattle to sell which is really hard because it’s not a truck load and they weren’t quite ready to go to the meatworks.  I’m not sure if he’s been able to sell them yet.  But if some one rang with two or more “decks” (a deck is a part of a truck, have you seen photos of our road trains?  If not I will send some through.  They are “double deckers, so each level is regarded as a deck, each deck holds approx. 25hd, depending on the size of the cattle.  We have road trains that haul three trailers making it six decks) it’s a lot easier to sell them

What are the career opportunities for young people in the agriculture industry?

Pretty much any job can be suited to the agricultural industry.  We have “agents”, vets, bankers, engineers, researchers, I.T, hands on stuff, environmentalists, you name it.  Lots of the jobs are urban based so you don’t have to move out to the bush!  Or if you want to live in rural areas but not work in agriculture we are always in need of teachers, nurses, childcare workers, emergency services etc etc.  You really don’t need a rural background for lots of these jobs.  I heard on the radio the other day that there are approx. 600 000 unemployed people in Australia but at any one time there is 100 000 jobs available in Agriculture.

Here’s a great video about the career opportunities

Can you explain how low-cost, home brand milk is negatively affecting Australian farmers? 
Bec Middleton’s comment half way down this link sums it up pretty well

 



 



Australia is very lucky that lots of us have never known extremely hard times or poverty, so we really take our food for granted.  I think that supermarkets selling fresh food at cheap prices makes people value it less.  And if they value our beautiful fresh food less and take it for granted, then they take for granted the people that produce it.

We love our Aussie Farmers!