News

A new project to bolster water sustainability in northern Australia is about to start, gathering the insights Northern Territory producers  need for greater crop yields while reducing water usage ... Minister for Northern Australia David Littleproud said the water productivity trial will set the scene for future water planning and decision-making.

Australia’s most trusted rural charity, Rural Aid, is helping fill the agricultural worker shortage created by border closures and travel restrictions.    Rural Aid’s Farm Army  website provides a platform  where volunteers and workers apply for jobs that are listed by farmers needing a hand.

Globally, as the aquaculture sector moves operations further offshore, the sector is encountering new challenges to access clean and reliable energy ... Carnegie’s wave-powered barge concept, MoorPowerâ„¢  offers a solution to this energy challenge – providing clean, reliable, predictable energy to support the growth of a diverse sustainable blue economy.

Australia is set for a second consecutive bumper winter harvest, with total production forecast to come in just five per cent shy of last year’s near-record crop, according to Rabobank. In its just-released Australian Winter Crop 2021/22 Production, Price and Inputs Forecast, the specialist agribusiness bank estimates the nation will harvest 52.87 million tonnes of winter grains, oilseeds and pulses this season. While down five per cent on last year’s crop, this is still a hefty 25 per cent above the five-year average.

A project is getting underway on Kangaroo Island to provide producers with the tools, skills, and management options to ensure ewe fertility and lamb survival is not compromised because of the bushfires impacting on pasture composition.

What better place to taste test fake meat than in the Beef Capital of Casino? Dale Paget and Pete Rogers were filming a segment for Channel 10’s  The Project  to be screened on television. “We wanted to see what people on the front line of the meat industry thought,” Dale said.

The Telecommunications Industry Ombudsman (TIO) published its submission to the Regional Telecommunications Review 2021. The submission highlighted the concerns of telco consumers living outside Australia’s metropolitan centres and provides insight into phone and internet complaint trends.

Shearing an alpaca is like shearing a sheep. Surely. Watching shearer James Dixon at Big Sky Alpaca farm proved otherwise. The alpaca is not held vertical between the shearer’s legs like a sheep ... Then there is the long neck of the alpaca that could easily injure if the alpaca thrashes around and this is secured with two weights. And the noise – oh my!

The Ballarat West Employment Zone (BWEZ) is going from strength-to-strength with five new tenants bringing more than 150 new jobs to the precinct – cementing BWEZ as an engine room for growth in regional Victoria. Minister for Regional Development Mary-Anne Thomas visited the BWEZ headquarters of Office Vision, which is expanding its operations to the manufacturing hub.

The question – can you imagine a world without seeds? inspired Afterlee artist Jenny Kitchener’s latest solo exhibition. Jenny’s   new exhibition Seed   highlights the important role bees, birds and other pollinating insects play in seed production.

Emma Pritchard. The 2021 Jacaranda Festival has been postponed for five weeks due to community concerns amidst Grafton’s rising Covid-19 case numbers ... "we were also expecting no restrictions on who could attend, but the double-vax rule has since meant many who haven’t been fully vaccinated won’t be able to. Moving the festival back five weeks will alleviate both of these issues and enable us to keep its tradition very much alive:” Jacaranda Festival Manager, Mark Blackadder

Emma Pritchard. Fuelled by his inspiration to provide the local community with affordable and reliable public transport, Mark Ruthven decided to put his business plan into first gear, and two years later, his investment is continuing along the road to success ... “Rabbit Ride-Share works along a similar line to Uber, but unlike Uber where customers use an app, they contact our call centre in town, talk to an operator, tell them where they are and where they need to go, they’re quoted an exact fare and one of our vehicles is immediately dispatched.”

Emma Pritchard. Cohen Daly has continued to inspire everyone, including the Clarence Valley community, with his courage as he bravely fought cancer ... just a few weeks ago, Cohen and his family finally received the news they had been longing and praying for.

New research from the University of Wollongong, a partner at the NSW Bushfire Research Hub, has found climate change will expose larger areas of forest in coastal NSW to higher frequency and more intense fires, amplifying the changes to fire regimes brought about by the 2019/20 fires ... Amongst other findings: Previous timber harvesting did not increase the fire extent or severity of the 2019/20 fires. However, there is potential for cumulative impacts in harvested landscapes that are subject to fire, particularly in the next 5 to 10 years.

The  Abrolhos Island and Mid-West Scallop Trawl Fishery  has achieved certification to the  MSC fisheries standard. It is the first scallop fishery in Australia and the eleventh fishery in Western Australia (WA) to gain this certification.