#88 News Leaf_News Leaf - Biodynamic Agriculture Australia

National Conference Beef Cattle Grazing
Breakout Sessions
By Shane Joyce, Director, Biodynamic Agriculture Australia Ltd
At our National Conference one group spent some time in a break-out session
discussing Biodynamics and beef cattle. Topics included:
animal selection, grazing system, parasites, pasture/crop selection, selling end
product, free choice minerals, using animals to spread preparations, foot problems
associated with wet conditions, how best to introduce new animals, animal
performance, low stress stock handling, and predators.
Other issues, which may apply to a broader range of agricultural systems, were
financial constraints, mobile fences, water, different environments, monitoring,
timing of application of biodynamic preparations, compost, time, dung beetle
activity, unwanted plants, people issues, weather extremes and resilience,
knowledge, inability to apply preps due to extremes of weather or terrain, keeping
rain on farm, labor and time availability, how to rehabilitate land.
I will cover the cattle specific issues in this article, leaving the other points for a
later time.
With animal selection we strive for environmental adaptability first and secondly
salability. Our animals must thrive in our environment, and to be able to manage
our variable seasons we must have animals that we can sell at any age or stage.
A must-have for a grazing system is REST. That is adequate rest for plants to
recover after grazing.
Parasites are largely managed by breaking up their life cycle through animal
grazing management.
Pasture/crop selection is done on the basis of wanting 3P grasses (palatable,
productive, perennial). Any introduction of new species (e.g. luceana) is only done
after a rigorous cost benefit analysis.
On selling end product we were recently caught out with only having certification
for Australian market and 1/5th of our annual turnoff were sold as non organic.
We now have upgraded our certification. An expensive lesson in relation to
producing product without having ensured we had a market.
Free choice minerals we do not now use, preferring to use the P/PC balance rule
(production/production capability). I prefer to balance the stock nutrition by
16 News Leaf #88 ~ Biodynamic Agriculture Australia Ltd