AgWatchers

On this podcast, we chat with Alison Meagher, the butcher girl. We have a chat about being a butcher, the meat industry, access to offal and fake meat.  A great chat and will make you feel hungry. 

We have a massive labour shortage in Australia - what are the solutions? We are joined by Ronald Recinos, the Guatemalan Ambassador to Australia. Guatemala has a temporary guest worker program with Canada. Thousands of Guatemalans travel to Canada every year to work on agricultural and horticultural properties.  Guatemala would like to offer the same to Australia. Would this work? Let's have a cha...

A quick update on markets with Matt and Andrew. Grains, livestock and the wider macro environment. 

We have Adam Clarke, a trade grain broker and high school friend of Matt, on the podcast this week.  In this discussion, we chat about the impact of wet weather on grain, how the market is performing and try and get some dirt on Matt from his high school days. 

In the first of our collaborations with the Global Sheep Forum. In this episode, we have a chat with Ben Galloway from New Zealand.  We chat about the issues facing agriculture in New Zealand, including carbon, labour and much more.  You can find more about the global sheep forum at www.globalsheepforum.com

We have a chat with R Kelly, also known as Rob Kelly. Rob is an old mate of the AgWatchers team and is the managing director of Agora Livestock, a new price discovery tool for the livestock industry.    He used to work in the grain industry and was one of the designers of 'Daily Grain' on the west coast. As always we cover a huge range of topics. 

We were joined to launch our collaboration with the Global Sheep Forum by Bonnie Skinner of Sheep Producers Australia and Nicholas Jolly of Beef + Lamb New Zealand.  On a monthly basis, AgWatchers will be collaborating with the Global Sheep Forum . We will be interviewing farmers from around the world to discuss the issues and opportunities they face. 

We have a chat with Marius Cuming about the recent AWI campaign about man made fibres. We also provide AWI with solutions to assist the wool industry grow and make more $

We have a quick chat about the volatility of the grain market, issues with livestock and the purpose of the fertilizer census. 

We have a chat with Elena Neroba, a grains professional from Ukraine. We found out about how Elena has been going since the war started, what the feeling on the ground is, and the impacts on the grain industry.    We also discussed the #GRAIN4UKRAINE campaign and why you should donate grain using NGR 15004442.

We have a chat with Patrick Hutchinson, CEO of the Australian Meat Industry Council. We talk about the issues around labour in meatworks, the media response to FMD, and free trade agreements that are in progress - and a whole lot more.  

TEM is no more, but the journey is never over.  Today we engage in our next episode. In this chat, we discuss the evolution of TEM to EP3. Recently, we have agreed to take over the TEM website and rebrand to a new entity owned entirely by the two of us. Thanks for the support of everyone over the past two years and into the future. 

We invite regular guest (x6) Chris Lawson back onto the podcast to have a chat about the fertilizer market. Chris is the head of fert for CRU Group, an industrial and fertilizer analysis firm. 

A very quick discussion on the big drivers in the market. Red meat demand heats up, risk of higher fertilizer pricing and Putin helping drive grain prices higher. 

We have a market chat. Lots of livestock data out - FSR, Cattle on feed and sheep turnoff. The grain market has also come under a lot of pressure with pricing levels falling. 

We are joined by Bonnie Skinner, CEO of Sheep Producers Australia.  Our chit-chat includes discussions of traceability, the gov biosecurity response, Chinese trade ban rumours, our new intro music and inflation impact on demand. 

Senator Raff Ciccone joins AgWatchers for chit-chat. Raff has launched a senate inquiry into the government biosecurity response to FMD/Varroa mite, which is ongoing.  We chat about food security, biosecurity, ag labour, FMD, diversity of markets and local manufacturing of inputs. 

We have a chat with Dugald Saunders MP, the agricultural minister for NSW. Biosecurity has been the hot topic of the last two months, but NSW is battling through its own devastating outbreak - Varroa mite in bees.  In this short conversation, we have a chat about EID tags, FMD responses and what is happening with the varroa mite outbreak in NSW. 

Just the two of us, a short podcast.  We chat more about falling livestock pricing, why we need to calm down about FMD, grain/fert pricing and food inflation.     

Just the two of us. A lot happening in ag markets at the moment. The big news over the past week has been the 'deal' to open up a corridor for Ukrainian grain exports.  We also cover the falling livestock prices in recent months and some discussions about a global downturn.    

It's been an interesting two years. COVID, FMD, invasion of Ukraine, a new Australian government, and so much more. Clearly, the biggest event was the start of the AgWatchers podcast, Australia's most amateur agricultural podcast.  The tables are turned on this podcast as we enlist a professional for our 2-year anniversary. Warwick Long, ABC Countryhour, turns the tables on us as we have a chat ab...

We talk to Mark Schipp, the Australian Chief Veterinarian Officer. In this podcast we go through the facts about FMD (and LSD/Varroa mite).    Are we prepared? Are feral pigs a risk? Do footbaths work? Do we need to ban Bali trips? What is the compensation? What is the risk? What are the controls in place? and a few other topics. 

Wheat down, canola down and cattle down.  We are back from a week or so on the road presenting around the country. After we get over the first few minutes of meandering through what we learnt on the road, we cover off the big drivers of the livestock and grain markets. 

In this episode, we recorded live from the stage of the VFF livestock and grains conference in Ballarat.  We had a chat Steve Harrison (Livestock President) and Ashley Fraser (Grains President) about the big issues impacting agriculture from changing governments to labour requirements. 

This week we did a joint episode with FlowFM, a South Australian radio channel. In this episode, we chat about food inflation, labour, government protectionism and a whole lot more.