Young Breed Leaders Workshop opens doors and encourages collaboration
During the month of October, two Angus Australia delegates headed to Brisbane to take part in the Australian Registered Cattle Breeders Association (ARCBA) Young Breed Leaders Workshop.
Angus Foundation Scholarship Recipients Sean Wright and Chloe Plowman both attended the workshop event, which is designed to draw together young leaders from Australian beef breeds. Running over two days, the program is designed to engage, develop and prepare participants to build a solid network of skilled future leaders of our beef industry.
Both recipients have put together a report following their time in Brisbane, highlighting their take homes from the workshop.
Sean Wright
The 2023 ARCBA Young Breed Leaders Workshop was a fantastic event. One which I am glad to have been selected to attend as a representative of the 2023 Angus cohort. The event was filled with networking, collaborative thinking, informative material, great guest speakers, and good times for all involved.
I believe the key take home message for myself was the need for more cooperation between breeds and their respective societies for the betterment of the overarching beef industry. With challenging times ahead and so many conflicting arguments outside the beef industry, the need for solidarity and communication between members of the beef industry has never been so important. This extends to not only a financial standpoint but also to our ability to uphold our social licence to operate and show consumers a sustainable future. We need to shift the stereotype of one breed being superior to another with an attitude for collaborative data collection and information sharing to streamline the flow of evidence to consumers. This is incredibly important I believe in Australia and New Zealand where at a global export market level, our beef is considered a premium product.
I believe another important concept from the workshop to mention is the importance of increased uptake of technology, particularly in the northern beef industry to make more informed decisions around genetics, selection, and herd profitability. This in itself directly links with our ability to communicate a story with consumers on a global stage through information capture and data sharing. With most of Australia’s cattle being from northern Australia, this uptake of technology is imperative for our industries success. Potential selection traits discussed at the workshop included dry matter intake efficiency, nitrogen usage efficiency, fertility and in our high-end branded products potentially flavour profiling, all of which have significant potential for exponential uptake across multiple breeds and in particular the Angus breed.
I would once again like to extend my thanks to Angus Australia for the opportunity to attend the ARCBA Young Breed Leader Workshop and eagerly look forward to being involved within the breed again in future.
Chloe Plowman
On the 24th and 25th of October I attended the ARCBA Young Breed Leaders Workshop held this year at Brisbane. It was a great two days catching up with existing friends and meeting so many new people who all share the same interests across different breeds.
This workshop allowed me to understand how leadership works within the beef industry with the guest speakers sharing their stories. It was great to hear from Jon Wright and Christian Coffey who both have different experiences., Jon shared his innovation of Blue E which is Angus x Shorthorn herd and the encounters he has experienced whereas Christian shared his story of how he has developed in his career and life with his family. Both these speakers really developed my understanding on different types of leadership and how they play a part in everyday life.
Another very inspirational speech was given by Gemma Noller whose resilience is amazing. To experience injury after injury in the lead up to the Olympics for Rugby 7’s, and still doing everything she could to be there with and for her team.
It was a very collaborative two days with many group activities, which allowed us to engage with each other and see other people’s perspectives on a topic and talk about why they believe that. Across the whole room we all shared an equal opinion that all the different breeds should be working together as an industry to build the beef brand.
Overall, this workshop has definitely given me insights into leadership in beef and where I see my future being more involved within the breed. I would highly recommend to any Angus Youth Member looking to get involved and learn about leadership in the industry to apply for this scholarship in future.
