MORE than 220 young beef producers from across Australia have gathered in Roma in the past two days to explore the key themes of preparation, performance and perseverance.

Now in its 18th year, the Young Beef Producers Forum is a significant industry event offering young beef industry stakeholders opportunities to enhance their industry knowledge, grow networks, and renew social connections.

The two-day event held this week has presented the delegates with a range of challenging and insightful messages from industry leaders. Many will stay on for the Roma Races tomorrow.

Commencing proceedings, agribusiness advisor Ian McLean of BushAgribusiness offered the participants several valuable take-home messages.

Highlighting the increased income many producers have enjoyed over recent years, he cautioned the delegates to consider the trend as a high-tide event, and not necessarily ‘the new normal’.

His advice in planning for the future was to remain focussed on improving operational efficiency across any beef business; to monitor the cost of production as well as being prepared to critically examine the cost benefit on all major capital expenditure.

“It’s important to be optimistic about the industry and the future – but you have to be realistic,” he said.

While investment in improvements may be justified, Mr Mclean cautioned about the importance of “avoiding distractions and shiny things” which can often lead businesses away from their key operating outcomes.

Reinforcing these messages, Christian Coffey, General Manager of Australian Country Choice’s Rural Property Group outlined the company’s expansion into breeding Wagyu as part of a broader diversification strategy.

The program goal for the group was to achieve 3000 Fullblood and 8000 Wagyu crossbred breeders by 2023. He highlighted the many challenges associated with developing and successfully achieving this goal, which is underpinned by significant data capture and attention to detail.

The session included a demonstration of several examples of the program with Fullblood and recipient cows along with the data used to allocate their roles in the breeding program.

For many, the focus and attention to detail associated with the program highlighted the importance attached to their own roles across a range of beef production businesses.

Continuing the theme of preparation, NT Department of Industry Tourism & Trade’s deputy CEO of agriculture fisheries and biosecurity, Luke Bowen outlined the importance of a unified voice to represent the industry, and stressed the importance to understand the industry structure in order that today’s participants could prepare for leadership roles into the future.

He also stressed the ongoing importance of national biosecurity and the need to understand the industry preparations and response in the event of an exotic disease outbreak.

Completing the Thursday sessions, focusing on perseverance and inner strength, well known graziers and public speakers Sam & Jenny Bailey from Croppa Creek in NSW shared their personal story commencing with the accident that resulted in Sam’s quadriplegia.

While many participants knew of Sam & Jenny’s story, the response to their journey and ambition to keep achieving goals resulted in an engaged round of questions and stories.

The first day’s session was concluded with a social function & charity auction conducted by well known agent Sarah Packer, with proceeds going towards LifeFlight.

The Young Beef Producers Forum has been described by many participants as being both thought-provoking and extremely rewarding.

A number of producers have attended on numerous occasions and class it as a must attend event for their own development and network growth.

Here’s some of the faces at this year’s popular gathering: