Wendy, I'm just going to stick to the real issues affecting WA
here, in the meat industry. That is just to deal with the livestock
for sale now, let alone the live trade, that would be extra.

Right now there is an application for a modern facility in Northam.
Its been held up for 12 months by Govt red tape, at the moment
its the EPA. Who knows how much more red tape will hold it up.

T&R want to build, still some red tape to clear there.

Wammco still can't bring in more workers. They are weeks behind
in their kill, due to lack of staff. No 457 workers can come
in to their place right now, despite it being shown how well the
last 30 Chinese are doing and what a difference they are making.

No wonder people paid Burke and Grill as lobbyists. To get
anything done under this Govt, seems to be impossible without
a major push from somewhere. They seemed to know which buttons
to push, nobody else seems to. So the WA meat industry remains
a disaster.

Yabby.

Yes its made hard purposely hard by those with vetted interests.

Your friends told me we are stuck on a difference of around five thousand dollars per skillied worker.

Animal Welfare organisations should sponser some.


We have had a few little wins however Yabby see todays report.
This was signed two years ago.

Thank You Prime Minister. Why cant Austrade be opened to invite overseas meat purchasers to meet Ausie Farmers?? It would certainly speed things along.


http://www.farmonline.com.au/news_daily.asp?ag_id=41322


Breaking Rural News : LIVESTOCK

New Halal brand launched in Middle East
Australia
Thursday, 22 March 2007

MLA has launched a new Halal brand for Australian red meat in the Middle East aimed at reinforcing Australia’s strict Halal standards in one of the world’s largest Muslim markets.

The new brand, which will appear on retail meat packs at point of sale, is the Australian red meat industry’s guarantee that the meat it exports has come from an animal that has been slaughtered according to the strict Islamic Shariah.

Australia is the only non-Muslim country in the world that underpins the integrity of Halal animal slaughter through government legislation, giving Australian red meat products a key competitive advantage in Muslim markets.

The Halal process is regulated through the Australian Government Muslim Slaughter (AGMS) program by government employees and is supervised by independent Islamic organisations.

All Australian Halal meat is labelled as having passed through the AGMS program.

This certification is only allowed to be placed on meat that has been processed at a registered Halal certified abattoir.

Australian red meat exports to the Middle East surged in 2006 – 43,071 tonnes of mutton, 17,685 tonnes of lamb and 3,312 tonnes of beef were sent to the region, valued at $242 million.

Demand has remained high in the first three months of 2007, but is likely to drop off as Middle East temperatures soar in the next few months.

SOURCE” MLA markets news

I am a bit dissapointed you dont seem too keen to sail off to the ME Yabby.

I was kind of looking forward to writing the "Adventures of Yabby"

Nope Wendy, what it needs is a change of mindset, in the
present State Govt.

Alot of these guys in Parliament now, they would have had
their education paid for, courtesy of the hardworking
rural sector. But at the present time, the WA treasury is
being stuffed with mining royalties and nothing else
seems to matter. If they accumulate those, they can
porkbarrel city electors and win the next election, so
farming seems to have been written off in WA.

Alot of the present problems in the meat industry are
caused by bad politics of the past. The last Minister
of Ag did try to sort them out. He got part of the job
done, then the Govt changed. The present mob are city
based, the country doesent seem to matter to them.

WA needs a high tech, fairly automated meat industry.
Only that way can we sell to the third world, yet still
pay a reasonable price for both livestock and labour.

There is no good reason why mutton can't be value added
into pizza toppings and other products. But you need a Govt
keen to assist, not one which just wants to tax industries
to the limits, for their own self interest and pet projects,
which seem to just about all be city based.

Yabby

Good idea1 on Pitza

You’re correct about WA plants

Remember that AQIS is Federal as well.
The meat trade is heavily propped up by most State Governments. I think things will happen.

The Countries importing live sheep and cattle are interested in the value adding and jobs their end. They play the market with escalations and non – tariffs to support it. Of course it’s also added as a disincentive for value adding in Australia.
After saying that the right heavy weights will push the other way too when it suites them!
I heard that the other hold up with WA workers was they approached plant operators but left boners etc out. They say it’s being fixed but you would know far more than me.

As you say it all comes down to the right person or people being appointed.

Who would you like to see get in WA?

In the mean time I couldn’t resist.>

Yabby `s Adventures [ Part One]

The first place I can remember is a long cool paddock under a shady tree with my Mother.
We often stood there and watched the other lambs playing in the sun.
I had problems with my knees right from a nipper which Mum told me was inherited from my father’s side. Mum would have said that.
I was cute for a boy and the other lambs sometimes used to make fun of me so basically I was lonely and spent most of my time close to my mother.
One day a man came to our farm and was looking at my Mother and some of the others in a strange and scary way.
I didn’t sleep much after that and when I did I kept having nightmares about this man called Mark.
It was rumoured he was a big wig from the city apparently one of those Government trade officials and I didn’t trust him one bit.
I heard through some of the others that this Mark "personally" organised ship loads of live sheep direct to Kuwait Governments and other countries.
to be continued

AUSTRALIA CALLING ON A FEW MORE 'MR PUCKS'

March 22, 2007
Celebrity Chef Announces Strict Animal-Welfare Policy

By KIM SEVERSON

Wolfgang Puck, the Los Angeles chef whose culinary empire ranges from
celebrity dinners at Spago to a line of canned soups, said yesterday
that he would use eggs and meat only from animals raised under strict
humane standards.

With the announcement, Mr. Puck has joined a small group of top chefs
around the country who refuse to serve foie gras, the fattened liver of
ducks and geese. But Mr. Puck, working with the Humane Society of the
United States, has taken his interest in animal welfare beyond ducks.

He has directed his three companies, which together fed more than 10
million people in 2006, to buy eggs only from chickens not confined to
small cages. Veal and pork will come from farms where animals are not
confined in crates, and poultry meat will be bought from farmers using
animal welfare standards higher than those put forth by the nation's
largest chicken and turkey producers. Mr. Puck has also vowed to use
only seafood whose harvest does not endanger the environment or deplete
stocks.

"We decided about three months ago to be really much more socially
responsible," he said in a telephone interview from Los Angeles. "We
feel the quality of the food is better, and our conscience feels
better."

Many chefs at high-end restaurants, some smaller food-service chains and
grocery chains like Whole Foods have refused to buy meat and eggs unless
animals are raised under certain conditions. In 2000, McDonald's became
the first American food company to impose minimum animal-welfare
standards, like increasing cage size, on its egg producers. But Mr.
Puck's program goes much further than most corporate animal-welfare
policies, and he is the flashiest culinary name yet to join with animal rights groups in the movement to change farming practices.

But Mr Puck's program goes much further than most corporate animal-welfare

Mr. Puck's ventures include 14 fine-dining restaurants mostly on the
West Coast. The flagship is Spago in Los Angeles, which helped him
become the nation's first celebrity chef. He also runs more than 80
Gourmet Express restaurants, many of which are in airports, and sells
frozen pizza, soups, kitchen cookware and cookbooks. Mr. Puck estimated
his companies' value at $360 million.

Since 2002, at least one animal-rights activist group has tried to
persuade Mr. Puck to stop using foie gras from ducks that are force fed
extra amounts of grain to fatten their livers and veal from calves
chained to small crates and fed a liquid diet to keep their flesh white
and tender.

The group, Farm Sanctuary, protested in front of Spago and started a Web
site called wolfgangpuckcruelty.org, which has since been taken down.
Mr. Puck dismissed those efforts and said he decided to make the change
as a result of a few trips to large-scale farms, discussions with the
Humane Society and a desire to mark his 25 years in the business with
something more significant than the kinds of big parties he is used to
holding for the Oscars.

"I have been telling people we have to stand for something for the next
25 years," he said. "It's time for us to make a statement and a time for
us to see how we treat what we eat."

Mr. Puck said prices would increase only a few percentage points on some
items.

98 percent of eggs come from chickens kept in banks of small
cages to facilitate mass production, said Diane Storey, a spokeswoman
for United Egg, which represents most major egg producers. She and
Richard Lobb, a spokesman for the National Chicken Council, which
represents major producers of chickens for meat, said their groups had
science-based animal welfare certification programs that used humane and
ethical guidelines.

THANK YOU MR PUCK And HUMANE SOCIETY.

Join Our Free Range Farmers Support Group.

http://www.freerangefarmers.com/freerange/eggs_qld.html

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

[Yabby`s Advertures continued Nest Post]