International

A new state of the art gene bank has been opened in Morocco by the  International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas (ICARDA). Gene banks play a crucial role in providing the materials required by researchers and global breeding programs to develop high yielding, resilient and climate adapted crops.

On the night of Thursday June 2, Quilpie Shire lit the way for Outback Queensland by staging special Platinum Jubilee celebrations for HRH Queen Elizabeth II at the spectacular Baldy Top lookout. The red earth of the renowned tourist destination turned purple as special purple coloured lights and fireworks were lit, along with several huge bonfires.   More than 250 locals and tourists alike gathered to pay respect to the Queen for her Jubilee.

Indonesia has 280 million people of which 38 million are farmers. Between them have 16 million cattle and 9 million pigs spread across 6000 inhabited islands, extending 5,500km East to West and 1,800km North to South. As the borders open and the world starts travelling again, we can look forward to the return of the 50 flights a week between Bali and Perth.   Each of these flights will carry the risk of the transmission of Lumpy Skin and Foot and Mouth Disease into Australia.

Joan de Bondt. Local resident, Wayne Clayton, and fellow Australian, Daniel Gladwell, have been selected to represent Australia in the World Ploughing Contest later this year... “The very best international ploughing competitors and their teams will be battling it out on Irish soil in September to become supreme World Champions,”: World Ploughing Organisation general secretary, Anna Marie McHugh.

David Bruce, Natural Hazards Research Australia. Fire and Climate 2022 (Pullman Melbourne, Albert Park, Monday 6 to Friday 10 June 2022) is an International Association of Wildland Fire (IAWF) conference on Fuels and Fire Behaviour, Human Dimensions and Safety Summit, in the tradition of past IAWF conferences.

Australia is laying the groundwork for a third consecutive bumper harvest, with this year’s total planted crop area forecast to reach a record 23.83 million hectares, Rabobank says in its just-released 2022/23 Winter Crop Outlook ... Locally, the bank says, “hopes are on” another large winter crop to allow Australian farmers to secure good margins in the face of high costs for inputs including fertiliser, fuel, freight and agrochemicals.

Ongoing inflationary pressures, a weaker global economic outlook and the prospect of a wet winter across many production regions of Australia is causing volatility for the agriculture sector... NAB Senior Agribusiness Economist, Phin Ziebell, said Australian agriculture was facing a number of opportunities and risks as a result of current global conditions.

The Joint Declaration of Intent for Cooperation in Bioeconomy was signed by Queensland Treasurer and Minister for Trade and Investment Cameron Dick and German Federal Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger. Bioeconomies are an emerging model for government and business, with a greater focus on sustainably using renewable biological resources to produce food, energy and industrial goods.

GreaseBoss, an Australian start-up founded in 2020 on the Sunshine Coast, is going for gold in the global award program dubbed the Innovation World Cup Series ... Three mining industry engineers launched the company after developing a novel system to automate the lubrication of heavy equipment and avoid the costly hassle of breakdowns.

The outlook shows 2022/23 may be the first year since 2012/13 in which the world has to consume less grain than the previous year – due to high prices and low supply, says Rabobank senior commodities analyst Cheryl Kalisch Gordon.   “This is forecast to be a drop of only 0.1%, but that compares to average annual growth of 2.1% over the past decade,” she said.

Nurses around the world were celebrated yesterday as part of International Nurses Day ... This year’s theme is “Nurses: A Voice to Lead - Invest in Nursing and respect rights to secure global health.” We put the spotlight on local Registered Nurse Rizza Pagayon from Tennant Creek Hospital’s GP Clinic.

The Australian Timor Leste Friendship Network was established in 2009, and in the same year, Mount Alexander Shire entered into a Friendship Relationship Agreement with the sub-district of Lolotoe, Timor Leste and Friends of Lolotoe Timor-Leste Incorporated. This friendship is based on mutual support and respect for each other’s culture. The Friendship group started work raising funds for school infrastructure, school resources, scholarships and gardening programs.

Joan De Bondt. Young Jack Thomas from Koondrook has landed a dream job in England as a performance engineer with the Aston Martin F1 team based in Silverstone, around a hundred kilometers from London. Jack has been in his new job for three months. He is a graduate performance engineer, motivated to learn, contribute and win in fast-paced, team environments.

Narrandera-born Renee Kiley was the sole Australian competitor in the women’s professional race in the St George Utah (USA) Ironman event at the weekend when the Brisbane-based former Narrandera athlete finished a creditable fourteenth in the world.

A targeted campaign across Vietnam and Malaysia featuring luxury, ribbon-handled gift boxes filled with premium Australian cherries has resulted in close to 4000 boxes sold and importers and consumers wanting more.

RaboResearch general manager for Australia and New Zealand Stefan Vogel said, in particular, there are four specific impacts of the lockdowns in China that are set to have increasing ramifications for Australian agribusiness – disruptions to freight logistics, Chinese corn plantings, dairy demand and hog pricing.

What a stuff up! The Solomon Islands entering a security agreement with the Chinese Government has all the ring of the fiasco of the signing of the Darwin Port agreement with a Chinese company with very close ties to the Chinese Government. The pattern for both agreements from an Australia point of view is remarkable similar, probably best called the ‘do nothing syndrome’.

"Australia sells energy and food to the world, so the tragedy in Ukraine means that our miners and farmers have seen the spoils of war."

Kate Foran. If you’ve stepped inside Barkly Vet Practice the last few weeks and found the clinic chillier than normal, we’ve been accommodating our visiting Scottish vet, Bill McCance! ... It’s a rare insight into your own region, looking through the eyes of a visitor from afar.

In the UK, Pitchup.com supported a successful campaign to extend permitted development rights allowing change of use of land for camping. This small change to planning rules facilitated the opening of 1,000 pop-up campsites across the country over the summer season, primarily at farms, and helped over 300,000 holidaymakers book a much-needed break in the outdoors.