John P. Hewlett, Department of
Agricultural and Applied Economics, and the WIRE team
Western Integrated Resource Education (WIRE) Team members from Wyoming and
Utah recently spent 30 days trekking through the heart of Queensland, Australia, offering
programs on integrated farm and ranch management. While there, they experienced many of
the "highlights" of Australia's bush and city life. Highpoints included property
tours, visits to research stations and grazing trial sites, stays in National Parks, as
well as extensive interaction with Queensland's extension educators, researchers, and
agricultural producers. Along the way, they found that Aussies are most hospitable hosts;
snakes do not live under every rock and log; koalas are quite secretive animals; and
gravity really does work on the underside of the globe!
The WIRE course was originally adapted for Western producers from Total Ranch
Management (TRM), a Texas course on integrated management. |
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WIRE team members recently spent 30 days
touring Queensland, Australia, working with the Department of Primary Industries, Meat and
Livestock Australia, the Beef Research Institute, and various agricultural producers.
Members of the team are, from left, Roger Banner, Jim Jacobs, Kent Drake, Randy Weigel,
John Hewlett, Frank Henderson, and Jay Jenkins. |
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The team of
Wyoming Extension agents and specialists spent considerable time modifying and fine-tuning
the framework developed in Texas. Since its 1991 inception, the team has not only offered
14 schools across Wyoming and Saskatchewan, but they have also trained teams from Idaho,
Montana, and Utah to offer the program. Coupled with courses offered by other teams,
course participants total more than 650, with a regional faculty nearing 70 instructors.
Folks in Queensland had heard of the WIRE program. Some had even viewed a taped
satellite broadcast offered across North American in early 1997. A pasture agronomist from
Charters Towers visited the WIRE team while attending the International Grasslands
Congress, held in Manitoba/Saskatchewan in the spring of 1997. A second Australian, a farm
financial counselor, attended portions of the WIRE course held last November in Newcastle.
Both individuals work for the Department of Primary Industries (DPI), which is similar to
our USDA, and were familiar with a similar program offered by others within their
organization called Futureprofit. They felt an exchange between the providers of
the two programs would benefit both teams, as well as producers in their regions. A second
organization, Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA), was also interested in programs offered
by the WIRE team. MLA administers the distribution of livestock checkoff-type dollars in
Queensland. In the end, three separate Australian programs jointly provided U.S. $10,000
for the visit--DPI, MLA, and the Beef Research Institute.
Dollars provided by the Australians were intended to accomplish several objectives.
The first was to have the WIRE course offered in Queensland. A three-day course was
held in Charters Towers for a mixed audience of producers and DPI employees, some from as
far away as Western Australia. The second objective was to bring the large number of
management-type program providers together to discuss how to better integrate programming
for the benefit of Queensland's primary producers. A forum entitled Management Training
for the Beef Business-A Symposium was organized. The Australians were very interested in
the WIRE approach to integrated management, as well as the U.S. Cooperative Extension
Service method for providing research-based information and programming to agriculturists.
Recent exchanges with the Aussies revealed that in-depth discussions on these issues have
continued after the WIRE team returned home. The team's visit provided a much-needed
catalyst for bringing the many Queensland agricultural educators together.
The third Australian objective was to exchange program methods and information
between the WIRE and Futureprofit providers. Several days were spent in meetings
with Futureprofit instructors from the five Queensland districts. Future faculty
and program graduate exchanges are being discussed. A fourth objective saw the WIRE team
providing producer forums on the U.S. cattle cycle and marketing alternatives available
for reducing risk. Livestock producers in Australia watch U.S. markets very closely.
Events in our country and shifts in our consumer preferences tend to shape what happens
outside our boarders more than we often realize. Other activities included team members
providing input into a formal review of MLA-funded projects in Queensland, making
presentations to the Queensland Cattlemen's Union annual meeting, as well as participating
in meetings with Building Rural Leaders program graduates on how the WIRE process might be
helpful for small town leaders across Queensland in revitalizing local communities. |
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| A wild koala poses for the camera. |
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The balance of the team's expenses was funded through
several U.S. sources: a UW International Travel Grant, College of Agricultural Global
Perspectives, CES Professional Improvement, Wyoming Association of County Agriculture
Agents, National Association of County Agricultural Agents, and WIRE program dollars.
Objectives for U.S. funding for the trip were many. First and foremost, the team wanted to
attend portions of the Building Rural Leaders program, which holds great promise as a
curriculum for developing rural leaders across the intermountain west.
The team also wanted to participate in as many |
property tours and farm-stays as possible along
the way. Several tours were organized, allowing for one-on-one interaction with graziers
in a number of settings. Operations ranged from traditional, family-managed, 40,000
acre-8,000 head operations to larger corporate operations utilizing state-of-the-art
technologies. Much of the beef grown in Australia is destined for Asian markets as
three-year-old, grass-fattened bullocks. With the financial crisis in Asia, livestock
producers in Queensland are weighing their alternatives very carefully.
Other activities and sites the team was able to participate in along the 1,700 mile
trek north through rural Queensland included: A visit to the Ekka--the Royal Brisbane
Exposition--much like our state fair; whale watching in Hervey Bay; a visit to Carnarvon
Gorge National Park where the platypus, dingo, and bush hiking were awesome--to say the
least; observing the sugar cane harvest, cotton plantations, citrus groves, wheat fields,
and many other crops grown along the route; witnessing the Great Barrier Reef and its
giant clams, starfish, sea turtles, and even a reef shark; and a stop at the Tjapukai
Aboriginal Cultural Park in Cairns, which gave us a much greater appreciation for the
history and culture of the native Australian peoples.
In short, the trip to the land down under was a very rewarding experience. in many
ways, their people have much in common with rural Americans. Livestock producers there
face problems with dingoes and 'roos, where we deal with coyotes and prairie dogs. The
Aussies are truly wonderful hosts and are quite sincere in their efforts to better
understand the issues we face in the United States. |
