The Weekly Grill

S4 Ep42: Foodbank's Brianna Casey and Michael Davidson

As the festive season draws closer, pressure on the nation’s critically important charity groups like Foodbank reaches its height.

Foodbank is the largest hunger relief charity in Australia, providing the ‘food pantry’ to the charity sector across the country.  This year alone, Foodbank sourced enough food for more than 92 million meals, and the number grows as cost of living pressures continue to mount.

In this final Weekly Grill podcast episode for the year, host Kerry Lonergan talks with Foodbank Australia chief executive Brianna Casey, and chief transformation officer Michael Davidson about the massive task at hand, and how people can help. Michael shares progress on the beef sector’s engagement with Foodbank, and the associated BeefBank concept.

The Weekly Grill will return with a new series in 2025.

 

The Weekly Grill is brought to readers and listeners by Rhinogard by Zoetis.

S4 Ep41: Food security issues, with Andrew Henderson from AgSecure

FOOD securuty has been in the news this week, and in today’s episode of the Weekly Grill podcast, host Kerry Lonergan talks with Andrew Henderson from AgSecure

Andrew is the principal of Agsecure, the independent chair of the Safemeat Advisory Group and a former adviser to the federal government on biosecurity and the red meat and livestock sector.

 

The Weekly Grill is brought to readers and listeners by Rhinogard by Zoetis.

S4 Ep40: A glimpse into the future of artificial breeding, with Dr Gerard Davis and Nick Cameron

A glimpse into the future of artificial breeding in the cattle industry is provided in this week’s podcast, where Nbryo’s Nick Cameron and Gerard Davis talk through the company’s ambitious plans to ‘condense seven years into seven days’ using a suite of novel technologies that promise to re-imagine livestock systems for future food resilience.

By any reasonable measure, the broader scope of the Nbryo project is visionary, and potentially far reaching. The technology is designed to have equal application for a progressive beef producer in Australia looking to produce more efficient and environmentally friendly beef, as it is for a smallholder farmer in Bangladesh with two head of cattle, who could improve his or her productivity by as much as 50pc in a single generation.

For this reason the project has attracted some serious early financial backers, including the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

 

The Weekly Grill is brought to readers and listeners by Rhinogard by Zoetis.

S4 Ep39: Regular cattle market update, with Matt Dalgleish and Chris Howie

Today's Weekly Grill podcast continues our occasional markets series, with host Kerry Lonergan talking with regular markets commentators RMA's Chris Howie and Ep3's Matt Dalgleish.

Weather conditions over the next couple of months will have a strong bearing on slaughter and store cattle prices heading into 2025, regular markets contributors Chris Howie and Matt Dalgleish suggest in today's episode of the Weekly Grill podcast.

The pair also discuss the impact of the Trump victory in Wednesday's US elections on Australia trade, the prospects for more Australian beef into the US next years as US herd recovery kicks in, and where the bargains are likely to be found over the next six months in the store market.

This will be the last markets update in Beef Central's Weekly Grill podcast series for 2024.

 

The Weekly Grill is brought to readers and listeners by Rhinogard by Zoetis.

S4 Ep38: Environmental Social Governance, Catherine Marriott OAM

In this week's episode of the Weekly Grill podcast, host Kerry Lonergan sits down with respected leader for change and 2024 Nuffield Scholar, Catherine Marriott who was invited to present at the BeefEx feedlot convention in Brisbane recently.

Over the last 20 years, Catherine has worked as an executive, a non-executive director and consulting roles in the agricultural, reseach and regional development sectors in Australia and internationally. During this time, she has become a proven business leader, communicator and organisational renovator, focussed mostly on leadership development, advocacy and delivering innovative solutions for the industries in which she works.

In this episode the pair discuss Catherine's journey through the Nuffield program, ESG (Environmental Social Governance) and where it started, its impact across Europe, Asia and the United States, and how if impacts Australian agriculture.

The Weekly Grill podcast is brought to listeners by Rhinogard from Zoetis.

S4 Ep37: Charlie Arnot, CEO of Centre for Food Integrity

In this episode of the Weekly Grill podcast, host Kerry Lonergan sits down with Charlie Arnot, CEO of the Centre for Food Integrity, who spoke at the grainfed beef industry's BeefEx conference in Brisbane last week.

He spoke about how global expectations around animal welfare are shaping beef production practices in Australia, and how the industry can help protect its freedom to operate.

 

S4 Ep36: Energy and Agriculture, Professor Ralph Schoellhammer

This week Kerry Lonergan sat down with international economist and political theorist, Ralph Schoellhammer following his presentation at Beef Ex 2024.

Professor Schoellhammer specialises in the intersection of political philosophy and energy policies. His work explores how cultural convictions influence policy outcomes, particularly regarding energy, industry, and agriculture, addressing what he sees as a cultural self hate in the West.

As reported earlier this week, Professor Schoellhammer advocates 'The world needs more Australian agriculture and mining". However, as Kerry and the professor discuss, the challenge lies in changing deep-rooted idealologies.

 

[

 

S4 Ep35: Renewable energy services provider Carl Duncan

Momentum continues to grow in the sustainable and renewable energy field, with plenty of applications emerging in the beef industry's processing and lotfeeding sectors, especially.

 

In this week's Weekly Grill podcast, host Kerry Lonergan talks with Carl Duncan, former sustainability officer with Teys Australia who now heads sustainable energy solutions provider NRG-One.

The company helps agribusinesses reduce their carbon footprint for a variety of reasons, from reducing operating costs to making brand claims around carbon reduction.

How far can solar, methane capture and wind projects go in the bush?

S4 Ep34: Lotfeeder and grainfed branded beef exporter, Lachie Hart

The head of the vertically-integrated Stockyard grainfed beef business, Lachie Hart, sat down last week for an extended chat with Weekly Grill podcast host Kerry Lonergan.

Among a host of topics touched on by the pair was Stockyard’s experiences as one of Australia’s trail blazers in the field of sustainability performance-linked finance; the rapidly growing cost to operate in the commercial lotfeeding industry; Stockyard as a multi-generational family business; trials and adoption of new technologies like live animal scanning for marbling performance; and how the Stockyard business has evolved from its earlier heavy focus on Japan to other high-value export markets like the Middle East.

 

The Weekly Grill is brought to readers and listeners by Rhinogard by Zoetis.

S4 Ep33: Evolving state of Australia's rural property market, with LAWD's Danny Thomas

 

There's a lot happening in the international and domestic environment that's shaping the Australian rural property market heading towards 2025, leading property marketing identity Danny Thomas tells Weekly Grill podcast host Kerry Lonergan in this week's episode.

The Weekly Grill is brought to readers and listeners by Rhinogard by Zoetis.