Some of our district’s leading farmers rolled into the Naracoorte Town Hall recently, eager to hear the latest about cyber security, farm finance, carbon farming and livestock health.

Additionally, motivational speakers included Naracoorte raised Jess Stenson, a Commonwealth Games gold medallist, and her brother Jack Trengrove, a former AFL footballer who found success within the finance industry.

With an agenda set to inform and inspire modern farmers, the Primary Producer Information Day was organised by Pinkerton Palm Hamlyn and Steen (PPHS).

PPHS director, real estate and livestock consultant, Richard Harvie, was pleased to see 85 people attend the event, especially given the weather – it was the first dry day among several wet ones.

He said PPHS had previously had some information days which were successful.

“If we go right back to the GST, we had an accountant come and talk about the GST to our clients,” Mr Harvie said.

“Then when National Vendor Declaration (NVD) and Livestock Production Assurance (LPAs) all started, we had another one.”

“We hadn’t really done anything since then.”

But a lot of issues were currently running hot within the farming community and guest speakers were selected accordingly.

In2it owner Daniel Hayes highlighted how easy it was for local farmers and businesses to lose money over the Internet, no matter how careful or intelligent they were. Poor cyber security awareness was creating havoc and people were losing tens of thousands of dollars.

Farm Finance Co rural finance specialist Alana Davies detailed the short and long term interest predictions among banks. She also highlighted that carbon farming was enabling some banks to offer cheaper interest rates.

My footprint founder Sam Curr explained the app he created to enable farmers to work out their farm’s carbon footprint in 10 steps on a mobile phone. He reinforced the talk by Ms Davies regarding two banks in particular offering reduced interest rates.

Talking Livestock founder Deb Scammell explained the nutritional needs of livestock, their gut requirements and the weaning process to best maximise returns for producers.

Well known as a motivational speaker within the livestock industry, Achieve Ag Solutions founder Nathan Scott kept farmers laughing but drove home the serious message of how to make money out of electronic identification tags in sheep.

“The (PPHS) board, Robin Steen and myself thought we’d have a day and see how it goes,” Mr Harvie said after the meeting.

“It’s just good to give something back (to farmers) and keep the information flowing.”

Mr Harvie said the agency role had changed a lot and was no longer about just selling livestock.

It now included a good flow of information about all aspects of livestock farming, what affected it, as well as regulations and compliance, along with detailed information about all the various markets.

Even the role of selling stock had changed.

“I could roll out and see a farmer with 100 steers in the yards,” Mr Harvie said.

“You’ve got a feeder order. You’ve got a fat order. You’ve got a store order and there are so many different ways to sell them.

“I can offer all the options. Some people say, ‘Oh, we don’t care, you just do it’.

“But others want information and we say ‘Hang on, let’s sit down and work it out’.”

Going through the options to keep, sell or hold included “trying to read the market a bit”.

“But at the moment – and I’ve been doing this for 40 years – I haven’t seen corrections as dramatic as what has happened in the last five months,” Mr Harvie said.

“We have sheep and lamb markets fluctuating $20-$40 a week up and down.

“We’ve got cattle markets correcting 30, 60, 70 cents a kilo – that’s $280 to $300 a head a week.

“I have not seen that before. But it can go the other way too.”

Mr Harvie said he hoped farmers enjoyed the day and got something out of all the information on offer.

This article appeared in the Naracoorte Community News.