Investing in the next generation
Bonnie Cox, Brianna Maslen, Chris Mectalfe and Damien Thomson will be joining a panel at the ‘Beyond the Beef’ Zoetis Angus National Conference to discuss how focusing on people will shape the future of the beef industry.
Bonnie Cox
Bonnie originally hails from Armidale NSW and now resides on a commercial beef operation in Berry on the NSW South Coast.
Bonnie is currently studying a Bachelor of Agriculture and works at AuctionsPlus. Bonnie has always had a passion for horses alongside her love for bovines and will always have her head in a book.
Bonnie was the inaugural recipient of the AuctionsPlus and Angus Foundation Cadetship.
Brianna Maslen
Brianna Maslen is a full time PhD student at Charles Sturt University (CSU) in Wagga Wagga. Brianna grew up in Canberra and moved to Wagga to complete her undergraduate degree in Animal Science at CSU. She graduated Animal Science with a first-class Honours in 2019. Her honours project focused on the temporal changes in the gut microbial profiles of beef cattle on feedlot placement. Intrigued by her honours research, Brianna decided to pursue a PhD on a related project. Brianna’s doctoral research project is focused on determining whether faecal microbial profiles can be used to distinguish between animals with divergent phenotypes for growth performance or immune competence. Her project has been supported with data from the Angus Australia Sire Benchmarking Program and is now funded by Angus Australia when Brianna was awarded the Angus Foundation Research Grant. It has also been supported with funding from Charles Sturt University and an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship. Brianna is passionate about research and development that relates to the red meat industry and is keen on translating her research findings into practical applications that benefit beef cattle enterprises.
Chris Metcalfe
Chris farms on the south coast of Western Australia with his parents Richard and Christine and brother Tim. They run a mixed farming enterprise across 18,000 ac with cattle being their priority and the largest part of their business. Together, they run the Koojan Hills Angus stud and Melaleuca Murray Grey stud as well as a 1,500 head commercial herd that is a 70:30 mix of Angus and Murray Greys. Primarily, their commercial herd produces grass fed cattle for the supermarket trade. They trade steers acquired from Koojan Hills and Melaleuca clients and will be aiming to supply approximately 2,000 grass fed cattle to Woolworths in the spring of 2023 targeting 270-280kg carcase weights.
Chris was part of the GenAngus Future Leaders Program.
Damien Thomson
Damien is currently the senior analyst in the AuctionsPlus Market Insights team and formerly an industry economist at ABARES. Damien has grown up on his family’s beef cattle operation, Shacorrahdalu Pastoral near Yass, and is passionate about the breeding and marketing of performance Angus genetics. He has been an active Angus youth member, including recently extending his network internationally to New Zealand as a recipient of the Trans-Tasman Travel Bursary. In 2021, Damien was a Beef Australia Scholarship winner and GenAngus Future Leader.
The ‘Beyond the Beef’ Zoetis Angus National Conference, is set to take May 18th and 19th at The Event Centre, West Tamworth League Club, NSW and will include a pre conference tour on May 17th.
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