May 24, 2004

 

 

Australian Organic Obe Beef Market Winner

 

When fewer than a handful of graziers gathered for a workshop in far western Queensland at Thargomindah to hone their business skills, they could not have imagined they would forge the largest organic beef operation in Australia.

 

But as the four graziers worked on property management plans with the Primary Industries Department, an idea was floated that would capitalise on their isolation. The vast open plains hundreds of kilometres from polluted cities and industry, and far from agricultural chemicals and degraded waterways, offered an opportunity to adopt certified organic production.

 

Interest was garnered amongst other producers in the district and 30 graziers attended a second workshop, this time to upgrade computer skills, marketing know-how and financial planning skills.

 

The group formed Obe Beef, which now runs up to 95,000 head of cattle on 26 properties from Augathella to Birdsville and from Lake Eyre and east to Thargomindah, covering seven million hectares.

 

Its organic market niche has grown from the ground up and is now 6,000 head a year with potential to grow to 20,000 head a year as customer demand increases for meat from animals that have not been treated with chemicals or growth promotants.

 

Instigator of the initial workshop, Scott Fraser, is a director of Obe Beef and champion of organic production as a means of increasing income by value-adding to their existing beef production.

 

Mr Fraser, of Nooyeah Station, a 92,000ha property 30km west of Thargomindah, turns off 500 to 800 steers a year from his santa gertrudis/short horn herd.

 

Conversion to organic production had paid off for producers, yielding price premiums of up to 30 per cent, he said. "Our cost of conversion was reduced because we have never used chemicals.

 

"Our paddocks and yards were soil-tested and the sheep dips and yards fenced off," Mr Fraser said.

 

Each beast is tagged with a national livestock identification system number to meet European Union organic production standards for trace-back of each individual beast.

 

Obe is accredited by Australia's two organic certification bodies, the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia and Biological Farmers Australia.

 

The producer group now exports to Japan, the US and sells on the domestic market to Coles and Woolworths stores in NSW, Victoria and the ACT.

 

Last year, they broke into the Queensland market with two Brisbane independent supermarkets, Zone Fresh at Windsor and The Gap Family Market.

 

Organic beef already accounts for 10 per cent of Zone Fresh's beef sales. Obe has a hands-on approach to marketing, taking orders directly from customers and then consigning the required cattle to their processor stockyard, a certified organic abattoir at Grantham in the Lockyer Valley.

 

Mr Fraser says Obe's next objective is to sell chilled and processed whole cuts of boxed beef into the European Union.