With cyclone Alfred hovering off the Queensland coast the week before the Summit there were question marks all over the place. The BOM predicted a couple of inches across the few days leading up to the Summit. Instead, we got 10 mm which laid the dust and set us up for the perfect field day.

Our destination, a feedlot on the old river road between Goondiwindi and Yelarbon. Some of the attendees may have been thinking, what could going to a feedlot teach us about regen farming practices or improved animal husbandry when our system is entirely different?

Jason Shearer-Smith and his team from Smithfield Cattle Company’s Sapphire Feedlot were so incredibly open and honest that many of the attendees' misconceptions were blown out of the water.

They are pushing the boundaries of world best standard in their feedlot enterprise, animal welfare techniques and regen agricultural practices.

Over one hundred Mac Ag members and local producers were granted back-stage passes to the inner workings of the feedlot including their feed mill, ration calculations and cleaning of pens, through to using ultrasound technology to assess the size of selected meat cuts and marbling without distressing the animals.

Most graziers were keen to take home Smithfield’s cattle yards with much of the system operating with hydraulic gates and Temple Grandin designed yards to move the cattle reducing the stress on the animal as well as reducing the risk of injury to staff.

In the paddock they are trialing the use of Johnson-Su composting to increase the fungal component of their grazing and cropping paddocks fungal:bacterial ratio. This process can be done by Smithfield on a large scale due to the high volume of waste product from the feedlot in terms of manure and wood chip. Their aim is trying to industrialize this process by a walking windrow to allow worms to move through the system. Mixing tanks to create compost teas and extracts were about to be installed.

The Smithfield team are also trialing multispecies pastures, spreading manure directly on to paddocks as their nitrogen source and land prep options prior to planting pasture. Paddocks are set up for cell grazing. Their commitment to regen ag and continuous improvement was impressive.

Thank you, Jason Shearer-Smith and his team, for the opportunity to see the world-class work that you are doing.