Neroli Brennan: This is Seeds for Success, a show where we have a good
Neroli Brennan: yarn about ag life with producers who are having a
Neroli Brennan: go. On the show, you'll hear from farmers in New
Neroli Brennan: South Wales who are out there battling the elements, making
Neroli Brennan: tough calls and getting the job done. You'll get a
Neroli Brennan: laugh out of some of their stories and also pick
Neroli Brennan: up some know- how along the way. I'm your host,
Neroli Brennan: Neroli Brennan. Today we're chatting with Ian Clifton, or Harry
Neroli Brennan: as he's better known. Harry, along with his family, run
Neroli Brennan: a commercial Angus cattle herd on their 12,000 acre property,
Neroli Brennan: Karonga, near Coonabarabran, where he uses Wagyu bulls over his
Neroli Brennan: Angus females to create a crossbred or F1 steer destined
Neroli Brennan: for the Japanese market. In this episode, Harry talks to
Neroli Brennan: us about the basis of his operation, his pastures, and
Neroli Brennan: how growing slender leaf serradella has helped his difficult and
Neroli Brennan: less productive soil types pull their weight. Harry also talks
Neroli Brennan: about selling Wagyu animals across different seasons and markets in
Neroli Brennan: his eight years of experience in the enterprise. You'll also
Neroli Brennan: hear Harry discuss the importance of relationships when marketing his
Neroli Brennan: animals, and how in the Japanese Wagyu market, this means
Neroli Brennan: creation of a personal, family- based and often lifelong connection
Neroli Brennan: with their buyers. Local Land Services mixed farming officer, Rohan
Neroli Brennan: Leach, sat down with Harry for this chat after a
Neroli Brennan: morning out in the paddock collecting some slender leaf serradella seed.
Rohan Leach: Harry, welcome to the Seeds for Success podcast.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Oh, thank you.
Rohan Leach: Harry, would you mind telling the audience a bit about
Rohan Leach: your farm out here at Karonga?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yes, we've got 12,000 acres, bit more, over two properties
Ian "Harry" Clifton: in basalt hill country that runs onto the back of the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Pilliga Forest and we run a beef cattle operation with
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Angus cows joined to Wagyu bulls, and over the years we've
Ian "Harry" Clifton: put a lot of improved pasture in and had quite
Ian "Harry" Clifton: an extensive fertilizer program. Rohan is here and I'm giving
Ian "Harry" Clifton: him a bit of a lecture about slender serradella.
Rohan Leach: That's right, mate. Thanks for outlining that topic. We'll jump
Rohan Leach: into that topic a bit more but just like to
Rohan Leach: know a little bit more about your farm. So you've talked about the Pilliga and
Rohan Leach: your basalt hills. It's pretty diverse soil types here, isn't it?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yes, where we are, the Warrumbungles are actually a horseshoe and they run
Ian "Harry" Clifton: around. They start on the western side of Coonabarabran and run
Ian "Harry" Clifton: around to the eastern side where we are. So it
Ian "Harry" Clifton: is actually quite steep rocky hills that take a fair
Ian "Harry" Clifton: bit of management and quite rough and it's important that
Ian "Harry" Clifton: you keep a fair bit of ground cover on these
Ian "Harry" Clifton: hills, otherwise the water just runs off into the creek.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: And then as we meet the Pilliga scrub which runs
Ian "Harry" Clifton: back towards the highway, Rocky Glen, if anyone knows the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: area, turn into loamy reddy soils, then eventually just into
Ian "Harry" Clifton: raw Pilliga sand that was quite a low pH of
Ian "Harry" Clifton: five and a bit sort of thing.
Rohan Leach: We're just driving around this morning and yeah, it's pretty amazing
Rohan Leach: to see the transition and how quickly it can go.
Rohan Leach: You go from this beautiful, fryable, black soil to sand within
Rohan Leach: a couple of footsteps it seems at times.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yeah, that's right. And you get a lot of sifton bush and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: wattle grow on that sand, which takes a bit of
Ian "Harry" Clifton: management but it is good country for serradellas and Consol lovegrass and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Premier digit grass, so you can make it productive. Yeah,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it's one of those soil types where you can't run
Ian "Harry" Clifton: out of money because it just needs constant attention and the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: basalt country subsidizes it a little bit from time to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: time, trying to keep it productive.
Rohan Leach: Almost hydroponic. You've got to put every ounce of fertilizer in to
Rohan Leach: get something out.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, it just needs a lot of single super. Every
Ian "Harry" Clifton: three years we try and put single over it and Mo
Ian "Harry" Clifton: super probably every seven or eight years and we've got
Ian "Harry" Clifton: techniques of pulling the sifton bush and wattle down probably
Ian "Harry" Clifton: every seven or eight years. It's just a constant thing. And look,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: even that sifton bush is not that bad because it
Ian "Harry" Clifton: grows up and then you pull it over and then
Ian "Harry" Clifton: there's ground cover on the ground that rots away over the next
Ian "Harry" Clifton: five or six years. It all helps, really.
Rohan Leach: That aging workforce in rural areas is a bit of a problem, isn't it?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: It is actually. It is. Look, I've employed a lot
Ian "Harry" Clifton: of backpackers over the years. Over the years we've had some fantastic ones and we're still
Ian "Harry" Clifton: in contact with them all these years later, but they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: generally only stay for three months. But constant retraining young
Ian "Harry" Clifton: people is hard. Getting older people actually, I find is
Ian "Harry" Clifton: actually quite productive. I've got an older lady on at the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: moment and she's 74. She came here when she was
Ian "Harry" Clifton: about 55 or six, but her and her husband had
Ian "Harry" Clifton: run their own business and it's just amazing when someone's
Ian "Harry" Clifton: run their own business, how much they get what you need
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and don't need to do. I actually think the older
Ian "Harry" Clifton: generation can actually be more productive and better on your
Ian "Harry" Clifton: gear than younger people who just don't have that experience
Ian "Harry" Clifton: of financial management.
Rohan Leach: They've got a lot of independent thinking as well. And
Rohan Leach: it's probably a bit of an art to not over
Rohan Leach: bossing those sorts of people. Let them do their own thing.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Well I do get in trouble from micromanaging from time to time,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: but I do try to be the bottom of the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: food chain when you're running the farm. Yeah, if you
Ian "Harry" Clifton: can let them do their thing and I know they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: probably don't think so, but I do take on what
Ian "Harry" Clifton: they say and their advice and listen to them and not all
Ian "Harry" Clifton: their ideas will get legs and fly, but yeah, some
Ian "Harry" Clifton: of them yeah, I think that is a good idea. We're
Ian "Harry" Clifton: going to do that.
Rohan Leach: You alluded to before that there is some pretty tough
Rohan Leach: soils here and we've been talking this morning about this Coonabarabran
Rohan Leach: region. I'm glad we took your Land Cruiser around this
Rohan Leach: morning because while it is beautiful, there's a fair bit
Rohan Leach: of up and down and creeks and gullies and constant
Rohan Leach: weed spraying is a thing. It sounds like a pretty
Rohan Leach: tough environment at times. Why do you farm here?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Well, I often think I would like to ask my
Ian "Harry" Clifton: grandfather, who turned up here in 1920 after the Second
Ian "Harry" Clifton: World War, and of all the land he could have come to, I don't
Ian "Harry" Clifton: know why he came here. Over time, the Clifton family
Ian "Harry" Clifton: have learned how to farm this country and be quite
Ian "Harry" Clifton: profitable. It is a real skill to do and yeah,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: you do need larger holdings where we live, because it's
Ian "Harry" Clifton: not quite as good. But larger holdings can be very
Ian "Harry" Clifton: profitable in good years. You can really punch a lot
Ian "Harry" Clifton: more income out because you don't have the ability to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: run at maximum speed all the time. So when you
Ian "Harry" Clifton: have the good times you can really put a lot
Ian "Harry" Clifton: of weight on your cattle and that's just all to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: the bottom line. And you tend to not get in
Ian "Harry" Clifton: trouble with droughts as much because you've got a bigger
Ian "Harry" Clifton: area and cattle can't walk into every corner but they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: tend to in dry times just go up a few dry gullies
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and top of hills they wouldn't have otherwise been. And
Ian "Harry" Clifton: I think look, we have a very good community. That's a very important.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Coonabarabran is just under 3, 000 and it's far enough
Ian "Harry" Clifton: away from Tamworth, Gunnedah, Dubbo to be its own independent town.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: And I speak to a lot of people from bigger
Ian "Harry" Clifton: regional centers and they say, " We don't know anyone in
Ian "Harry" Clifton: our town." Whereas in Coonabarabran, everyone seems to knock around
Ian "Harry" Clifton: together. There's no split in the community at all.
Rohan Leach: You mentioned just then that income and your cattle, probably a
Rohan Leach: big part of that is your pastures. And I first
Rohan Leach: met you a couple of months ago at a pasture
Rohan Leach: field day when you were very passionate about your pastures
Rohan Leach: and you've said, " Come out and have a look at
Rohan Leach: my slender leaf serradella." So how long have you been
Rohan Leach: growing slender leaf serradella for?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: It was recommended in a mix from Pulp Freeburn when
Ian "Harry" Clifton: we sowed some country we'd cleared, some Pilliga scrub country,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: in probably early nineties and I'd never heard of it.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Anyway, we put it in and then several years later
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it just appeared everywhere. It was just climbing all up
Ian "Harry" Clifton: through the sifton bush and growing in really wet, swampy
Ian "Harry" Clifton: areas that often you get in the Pilliga, and also in the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: dry areas. It just seemed to fit everything, and it's
Ian "Harry" Clifton: such a long season variety. It gets going in the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: autumn but you don't get a lot of production till
Ian "Harry" Clifton: the spring, then it really bounces away. And if you
Ian "Harry" Clifton: get a year like we've had this year, which is quite
Ian "Harry" Clifton: wet and cool, it'll still be producing feed in January.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: It's staggering. And the other thing I like about it is that cattle spread it really
Ian "Harry" Clifton: easily. We put it in one 300 acre paddock and it's basically
Ian "Harry" Clifton: got all over our farm, all over our lighter country in that time. We have sprinkled a little
Ian "Harry" Clifton: bit around from time to time, but it is an
Ian "Harry" Clifton: amazingly productive variety and it just doesn't get any airplay.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: I'd like to buy more seed but it's just unsourceable.
Rohan Leach: Slender serradella is different to your French serradellas and your yellow serradellas. It's probably
Rohan Leach: more suited to even some of these really tough, sandy
Rohan Leach: soils, water- logged soils as well. What have you found
Rohan Leach: to be the biggest benefit of it in your system?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Especially on those very bare soils, it'll grow on quite
Ian "Harry" Clifton: acid country, and it's such a good ground cover, just
Ian "Harry" Clifton: crawls all over. It's such a prolific seeder, even the seeds are
Ian "Harry" Clifton: ground cover, there's just so much of it there. I
Ian "Harry" Clifton: think it's the most productive of all serradellas in my mind. I don't
Ian "Harry" Clifton: know why it doesn't get more airplay or why it's
Ian "Harry" Clifton: just seemed to have fallen off the radar by these
Ian "Harry" Clifton: commercial seed companies. And it's why at the field day, I was trying
Ian "Harry" Clifton: to bully you guys and a few those seeds wholesalers
Ian "Harry" Clifton: there, you got to get this stuff going. There's money
Ian "Harry" Clifton: to be made here.
Rohan Leach: Well we'll see what we can do. It's probably the
Rohan Leach: most productive on your country of all the serradellas. Do you use
Rohan Leach: this as part of a mix?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yeah, sometimes it's called McFarland serradella, which was this old guy up at Narrabri and he used to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: strip it somehow and I used to go and buy bags
Ian "Harry" Clifton: of seed from him. Well I can't find him anymore
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and I'd like to buy more and I think everyone
Ian "Harry" Clifton: should be growing it. That's why I'm trying to encourage
Ian "Harry" Clifton: some sort of production of it. But it'll be interesting to see if
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it does. You've taken home a Woolworths bag full of
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it. So if you can get it going in trials
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and just see if it does grow everywhere else. Perhaps
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it's just quite unique to our environment or that sort
Ian "Harry" Clifton: of Pilliga soils. Maybe that's its home. I think it
Ian "Harry" Clifton: can make a lot of people very wealthy farmers in the future.
Rohan Leach: Maybe in a generation we'll be calling it Harry's serradella.
Rohan Leach: So how do you get the best out of it, Harry?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: I think we probably should be liming this country because
Ian "Harry" Clifton: our pH is quite low. But I mean another alternatives just grow varieties
Ian "Harry" Clifton: that are quite acid tolerant and you don't have to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: worry about the lime. Certainly, Consol and digit grass, they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: grow, they're quite happy to grow in those soils and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: if you've got something like this slender leaf serradella, it can be
Ian "Harry" Clifton: as productive as any other in your lighter country than
Ian "Harry" Clifton: growing clovers and if you're going to all that great expense to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: buy lime and putting it on a ton to the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: hectare, adds up to a lot when you could just
Ian "Harry" Clifton: buy a bag of this slender leaf and solve all your issues.
Rohan Leach: So it looks pretty magnificent even now in December. It's
Rohan Leach: starting to dry off a bit, but as you'd expect
Rohan Leach: with a winter annual. Looking good in a wet season,
Rohan Leach: how did it do in the drought?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: It'll germinate every year. You don't see a lot of
Ian "Harry" Clifton: things but it certainly is there and you get a bit
Ian "Harry" Clifton: of ground cover and look, they do get a nibble at
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it and sometimes I wonder how, if it's setting enough
Ian "Harry" Clifton: seed to germinate the next year because they just chew it
Ian "Harry" Clifton: into the ground. But it is such a prolific seeder.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: There's no worries. Once you've got it, you're never going
Ian "Harry" Clifton: to lose it.
Rohan Leach: Just that hard seeded nature of it is also a big help of
Rohan Leach: why it's so resilient and persistent. While it might seem
Rohan Leach: that every grain has come up, only probably 20 or 30% at
Rohan Leach: the very most might have come up. So there's just so
Rohan Leach: much in the seed bank.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yeah and look in dry times that's very hard on
Ian "Harry" Clifton: those poorer soils to get any production and this gives
Ian "Harry" Clifton: you an opportunity to get at least a mouthful and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: of something green anyway.
Rohan Leach: So you've mentioned it grows in well, it's got a
Rohan Leach: good system with Premier digit and your Consol lovegrass. You've
Rohan Leach: also got a lot of natives and plains grass and
Rohan Leach: I saw some red grass and other things growing today.
Rohan Leach: You've got a bit of an interesting system on how
Rohan Leach: you sow some of your tropical grasses. Do you mind
Rohan Leach: just talking through that?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Well yes, on our basalt soils it's in total madness.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Forefathers tried to crop this country in years gone by
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and look, I think in the sixties and seventies when
Ian "Harry" Clifton: wheat was worth a hundred dollars a ton, if you get a
Ian "Harry" Clifton: ton to the acre, a hundred dollars a ton, that
Ian "Harry" Clifton: was a lot of money. You could buy a new
Ian "Harry" Clifton: car for $800 so you didn't need a lot of tons to wheat to be
Ian "Harry" Clifton: profitable. But as time gone on, wheat's probably only tripled
Ian "Harry" Clifton: in value in the last 50 years. So it's certainly not profitable
Ian "Harry" Clifton: anymore. So we do have a lot of old farming
Ian "Harry" Clifton: country that went back to native passes a bit and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: what we're doing now is just putting two knockdown sprays
Ian "Harry" Clifton: over that, late winter, early spring.
Rohan Leach: And knocking down with Roundup?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: No, just we'd normally put two liters of Roundup on and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: 500 mill of ester and then we've got a rock
Ian "Harry" Clifton: hopper. I don't know how many people are familiar with that, but
Ian "Harry" Clifton: that was a machine that was produced probably 15 years
Ian "Harry" Clifton: ago and we happened to get one from our neighbor
Ian "Harry" Clifton: when they sold up. And it's an amazing machine where
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it can just crawl over all these rocks and logs
Ian "Harry" Clifton: that we have here and just cuts a little disk
Ian "Harry" Clifton: groove in the soil and it just drops the seed in
Ian "Harry" Clifton: the groove and some of it bounces out on the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: ground, and it does take a fair bit to get that
Ian "Harry" Clifton: digit out of the ground. It does need four or
Ian "Harry" Clifton: five days of really moist soil. But the last couple
Ian "Harry" Clifton: of seasons have been fantastic for that and we've had
Ian "Harry" Clifton: some great success in getting digit going on basalt soils,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: which is not always recommended for, but once it gets
Ian "Harry" Clifton: going, there's no better plant for that. Hopefully over the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: years to come we'd nearly have all our farming country
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and now we're just hoping that we'll get over our
Ian "Harry" Clifton: hills and just see what we can do. Just put
Ian "Harry" Clifton: little pockets of it in everywhere.
Rohan Leach: Normally on further west, maybe some more arable country, I'd
Rohan Leach: really advise people to probably crop for several years to
Rohan Leach: tidy things up. But it's fascinating to see what you
Rohan Leach: guys have done here. You're obviously having a fair bit
Rohan Leach: of success with just a single season of a knockdown.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yeah, yeah, yeah, it does break a lot of rules
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and all that. I think the issues with it, if
Ian "Harry" Clifton: you do farm it and disturb that soil, you will
Ian "Harry" Clifton: get a lot of weeds come back. So our idea is just
Ian "Harry" Clifton: to knock these native grasses back enough for two or
Ian "Harry" Clifton: three months while this digit is getting established and once
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it's got its roots down, it takes a lot of
Ian "Harry" Clifton: killing after that. And then you just end up with
Ian "Harry" Clifton: a mix. You have your natives and probably 50% of
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it is digit grass and it tends not to take
Ian "Harry" Clifton: over on your basalt soils as much as it does
Ian "Harry" Clifton: on lighter country.
Rohan Leach: That's probably one of the problems of digit is that
Rohan Leach: it gets too thick and stops those legumes from coming in.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yeah, that's right. If that black soil dries out, it'll
Ian "Harry" Clifton: just sit there, the digit. Whereas those natives seem to be able
Ian "Harry" Clifton: to respond a little better to lighter falls. So it's
Ian "Harry" Clifton: good to have that mix.
Rohan Leach: We might just move on to the money maker of
Rohan Leach: the operation. You're running a F1 Wagyu and Angus operation, correct?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yeah, that's true.
Rohan Leach: So what are the main things to get round your
Rohan Leach: head or probably for advice for other producers, compared to
Rohan Leach: a standard beef breeder operation?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Running Wagyus, this F1 operation, does take a little bit more
Ian "Harry" Clifton: management skill, not a lot more, but you've just got to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: be aware that you can't run... Well, I know people do you
Ian "Harry" Clifton: run a commercial Angus herd beside your Wagyus is really hard
Ian "Harry" Clifton: because there aren't too many fences that keep Wagyu bulls in.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: So you're then caught buying replacement Angus heifers every year.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: But that's okay because your Wagyu cross heifers you sell make more than
Ian "Harry" Clifton: your purchase price for your Angus heifers. So you're always
Ian "Harry" Clifton: in the market every year looking for replacements. And also
Ian "Harry" Clifton: you've got to have an outlet before you even start
Ian "Harry" Clifton: thinking about it. You've got to have somewhere to go,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: because there is a very small market and it gets oversupplied really
Ian "Harry" Clifton: easily and undersupplied really easily. So it's quite a boutique market,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: so you've got to have a connection of where you're
Ian "Harry" Clifton: going to sell these cattle, and if you get caught
Ian "Harry" Clifton: in a dry time, you just can't put them in
Ian "Harry" Clifton: the sale yard like other cattle. You just can't offload
Ian "Harry" Clifton: them because you just get smashed. They are very specialized.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: They've got to go into a feed lot and be on feed
Ian "Harry" Clifton: for around that 400 days before you can sell them. And
Ian "Harry" Clifton: our steers go to Japan on a boat and they're on feed
Ian "Harry" Clifton: for 540 days before they get slaughtered. So you're in
Ian "Harry" Clifton: a network with your buyer. So we are suppliers to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: these people and they rely on us to supply cattle
Ian "Harry" Clifton: every year. Particularly dealing with Japan, they like to have
Ian "Harry" Clifton: a very long connection with their suppliers. I can tell you a
Ian "Harry" Clifton: funny story that we had the Japanese come here probably
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it'll be seven or eight years ago now, and they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: turned up and we talked, a bit like we're talking
Ian "Harry" Clifton: now about our operation. Then they started asking me the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: history of our farm, how long we'd been on this
Ian "Harry" Clifton: farm, what our thoughts are for the future. And then
Ian "Harry" Clifton: they started talking to our son who was in year
Ian "Harry" Clifton: six at that time and they started asking him questions. See,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: just meet these guys. We actually had a little pet
Ian "Harry" Clifton: kangaroo at the time. He was bouncing around him, which was
Ian "Harry" Clifton: a big hit. And in the other interesting fun fact, my wife
Ian "Harry" Clifton: is a school teacher and they praised her highly, as
Ian "Harry" Clifton: teachers in Japan are thought of very highly and they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: are right up the society tree. If you're a school
Ian "Harry" Clifton: teacher you're considered a very important person. But anyway, they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: started questioning our boy and after they'd left or the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: conversation had finished, I asked this Matt Edwards from Edwards
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Livestock, who purchases our calves. And he said, " Oh look, I should
Ian "Harry" Clifton: have warned you. The Japanese, when they do business, they do
Ian "Harry" Clifton: business for a long time." And we were standing around the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: garden. He said, " See those two guys standing under that
Ian "Harry" Clifton: tree over there, they've been doing business since 1795. One
Ian "Harry" Clifton: owned a shop and the other one owned a little
Ian "Harry" Clifton: killing works in Japan in those times, used to hang
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it up in a tree. And so now they are
Ian "Harry" Clifton: major retailers and an enormous abattoir chain. When you do
Ian "Harry" Clifton: business with Japan, it's like working for Toyota. You do
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it for a lifetime." And so they just wanted to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: make sure that if they're going to take our cattle,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: we're still going to be here in a hundred years
Ian "Harry" Clifton: time. And that's the way that Wagyu industry works. You can't
Ian "Harry" Clifton: be jumping ship in and out because you just will
Ian "Harry" Clifton: find no home for them.
Rohan Leach: That's a long- term feeder option, but it's also a long-
Rohan Leach: term business option.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: It is. Sometimes you can't get your cattle in to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: the feedlots when you want to because they get oversupplied
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and they do their best to accommodate you. You've just got
Ian "Harry" Clifton: to be patient and wait your turn. The return probably
Ian "Harry" Clifton: is 30 or 40% more. But as I say, it's not for everyone. And you've
Ian "Harry" Clifton: got to be prepared to work with your purchaser and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: be patient enough to just roll with the seasons. And
Ian "Harry" Clifton: more often than not, you're always getting a premium. But
Ian "Harry" Clifton: there are times when the Angus price is actually better
Ian "Harry" Clifton: than the Wagyu price. Sometimes they'll set it 12 months
Ian "Harry" Clifton: in advance and sometimes six months in advance they'll set
Ian "Harry" Clifton: the price and there is no negotiation, there's no market
Ian "Harry" Clifton: fluctuations. That's just going to be the price for the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: next six months.
Rohan Leach: So, do you sell your progeny as get them to
Rohan Leach: a certain weight range or it's time or how do
Rohan Leach: you decide when to sell?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: The steer calves which go on the boat to Japan, they've got to leave the farm
Ian "Harry" Clifton: around 270 kilos. Remembering that the weight gain of a Wagyu is not what
Ian "Harry" Clifton: it is of beef cattle. So we generally weigh them at
Ian "Harry" Clifton: 300 kilos full weight and then by the time they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: get up to the quarantine feedlot at Oakey, they're about
Ian "Harry" Clifton: the right weight. You get a per head rate of
Ian "Harry" Clifton: them, there's no cents per kilo for them. They just
Ian "Harry" Clifton: pay you per head. And I think this year it was around $2, 700 but I
Ian "Harry" Clifton: know there's going to be a fall for next year.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: The next time the price comes out it's going to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: be less than that and they go into quarantine for
Ian "Harry" Clifton: three weeks and then they get on a boat and go to Japan, which takes
Ian "Harry" Clifton: 11 days. And then they go in quarantine in Japan.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: So by time they actually get on the feed in Japan, they're probably only
Ian "Harry" Clifton: weighing about 230 kilos. And so they don't do any good on
Ian "Harry" Clifton: the boat and they don't do much good in quarantine either.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: They only want to just keep them ticking over, not
Ian "Harry" Clifton: trying to fatten them. And then the heifers, they go
Ian "Harry" Clifton: to a feedlot at Condamine called Lillyvale and you get a cents per rate for
Ian "Harry" Clifton: them, which is somewhere between say $ 7 a kilo up
Ian "Harry" Clifton: to eight or $9 a kilo. So it's good two or $ 3 a kilo better
Ian "Harry" Clifton: than commercial Angus.
Rohan Leach: Than the current prices.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yeah.
Rohan Leach: What sort of growth rates do you expect out of
Rohan Leach: them? Are you an autumn or a spring calving here?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yeah, spring calving and they're probably doing 0.8, 0. 9 kilos a day
Ian "Harry" Clifton: maybe, hopefully. Whereas your commercial cattle are probably doing 1.0, 1.1, 1. 2.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: They tend to also be a lot more difficult to handle. They're
Ian "Harry" Clifton: very bad behaved children when they are young and as they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: get into adolescence they actually tend to grow a brain and they're
Ian "Harry" Clifton: a bit easier to handle. I often say you do
Ian "Harry" Clifton: need round paddocks when you run Wagyus because they just
Ian "Harry" Clifton: all pile up in corners and jump fences. And so
Ian "Harry" Clifton: there is a bit of skill in handling them.
Rohan Leach: They sound a bit belligerent, maybe the goat of the
Rohan Leach: beef industry, are they?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yeah, they are. There's no doubt about that. And the other trick is
Ian "Harry" Clifton: they are so fertile. Oh my god, we actually spay
Ian "Harry" Clifton: all our heifers now because we just can't stop them
Ian "Harry" Clifton: getting in calf. They'll get in calf on their mother,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and the bulls, they break all the rules you ever
Ian "Harry" Clifton: knew about beef cattle, testicle size and big rumps and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: these are just very small testicles, they're very athletic and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: they just turn up in the most amazing places. And so
Ian "Harry" Clifton: you've got all your heifers ready to go and you
Ian "Harry" Clifton: find a bull in them so then you have to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: give them a prostaglandin and abort the calf before they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: get on the truck. Yeah, as I say, there are good
Ian "Harry" Clifton: returns in it, but there is also a higher degree of management.
Rohan Leach: With your replacement heifers, do you see much better calving
Rohan Leach: ease with the Wagyus is?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Oh, without a doubt, yes. In fact, I don't even
Ian "Harry" Clifton: know where our calf puller is anymore. Many years ago
Ian "Harry" Clifton: we had Herefords and we used to wear calf pullers
Ian "Harry" Clifton: out, and then we went to a (inaudible) cross Hereford and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: that commercial cow, and yeah, we still pulled a few,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: but with Wagyus, they just slip them out. It is amazing. They're
Ian "Harry" Clifton: just little cats when they come out.
Rohan Leach: So is there anything in particular that you look for
Rohan Leach: when you're buying your bulls?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Well that's the other thing. Our supplier, when we need
Ian "Harry" Clifton: new bulls, they work out our marbling scores and how
Ian "Harry" Clifton: things are going, because it's all about marbling scores. It's nothing
Ian "Harry" Clifton: to do with the frame of the animal. And they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: will supply us with the bulls that they think we need.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: And so you just say you want three bulls and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: they'll just turn up in a truck one day. So that
Ian "Harry" Clifton: does save you several days of year of work going around bull
Ian "Harry" Clifton: sales trying to purchase bulls.
Rohan Leach: Do you get any feedback from the suppliers about how your
Rohan Leach: animals are going and anything that you can improve on?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yeah, no, that's a constant. At least once a year
Ian "Harry" Clifton: we all go Toowoomba and they give you your data
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and how things are going, and they want a marble score around
Ian "Harry" Clifton: six to seven. So if you fall in between four and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: eight, you're doing okay. It's a bit hard to adjust anything
Ian "Harry" Clifton: here. It really is about the genetics of the bull
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and once they leave our place, they go to a
Ian "Harry" Clifton: feedlot and then the feedlot actually has a lot of
Ian "Harry" Clifton: influence on the marble scores, how they feed them. And
Ian "Harry" Clifton: even killing when they go to the abattoir when they
Ian "Harry" Clifton: kill them, if they don't chill them slow enough, at
Ian "Harry" Clifton: the right temperature, that can nearly knock a whole marble score
Ian "Harry" Clifton: off. A lot of people have influence on your final
Ian "Harry" Clifton: data, but I think if cattle get a bit of
Ian "Harry" Clifton: a setback it does take a long time to turn
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Wagyus around and so you've got to just keep them constantly going
Ian "Harry" Clifton: and yeah, supplement feed them when you have to, which
Ian "Harry" Clifton: is about all we can influence really.
Rohan Leach: How long have you been breeding Wagyus for?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Look, I think we started about 2007 or eight or
Ian "Harry" Clifton: something. Something around there. Yeah, they'd been around for a
Ian "Harry" Clifton: while and I'd sort of toyed with the idea. And
Ian "Harry" Clifton: when we got involved, there really was no commercial outlet
Ian "Harry" Clifton: for your heifers, it was only the steers. And that
Ian "Harry" Clifton: slowly developed because most of the heifers now go into
Ian "Harry" Clifton: the high end restaurant hotel trade and export to Singapore,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Middle East markets. With the steers, they basically go to that
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Japanese market and mainly only in the supermarket trade in
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Japan because all their high- end stuff is full blood
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Wagyus, which the Japanese produce, and a few Australian producers.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: They get exceptional marble scores. We have been to Japan,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: been there twice. You have to go there and speak
Ian "Harry" Clifton: to the Japanese and look at what they're doing and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: they give you tours and talks. It is a real connection between supplier and
Ian "Harry" Clifton: processors and supermarkets. Theirs is a whole different eating experience
Ian "Harry" Clifton: compared to what we produce.
Rohan Leach: What I've got from this conversation is just a relationship
Rohan Leach: that you've got with the buyers and that it's a
Rohan Leach: really long- term thing. Mate, for my final question I like
Rohan Leach: to ask, what do you think the big issue is in
Rohan Leach: Australian agriculture at the moment?
Ian "Harry" Clifton: I think, well there's quite a few issues actually. Let's start with the
Ian "Harry" Clifton: price of land. There has been a real spike in
Ian "Harry" Clifton: land prices and it's going to be a real issue
Ian "Harry" Clifton: in years to come in succession planning, in trying to
Ian "Harry" Clifton: get young people back onto the land when prices are
Ian "Harry" Clifton: so valuable. Especially they've got a couple of siblings involved
Ian "Harry" Clifton: or as a young bloke trying to start out. And
Ian "Harry" Clifton: that feeds in with the aging workforce in the land.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: The average age of farmer gets a year older every year.
Rohan Leach: Every year, yeah.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: When I started out, the average age of a farmer was 50, now it's 65 or six or something. I don't know what it is.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: But better commodity prices and better seasons, I'm amazed how
Ian "Harry" Clifton: many young people have come back on the land. So
Ian "Harry" Clifton: there is some hope there. I am not one of
Ian "Harry" Clifton: these climate change skeptics. I think that's a real thing,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: but I think it's a real opportunity for farmers. There's
Ian "Harry" Clifton: money to be made in climate change and we really can, if
Ian "Harry" Clifton: they can find a way to get carbon-
Rohan Leach: Soil carbon or carbon accounting.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: If we can get some reward for laying down soil carbon,
Ian "Harry" Clifton: I think this is going to be just another source
Ian "Harry" Clifton: of income.
Rohan Leach: Beauty mate, I love to end on a positive note
Rohan Leach: and I think that's a good one. So Harry, thanks for
Rohan Leach: coming on the podcast.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Oh, thanks very much, Rohan.
Rohan Leach: And hopefully we can maybe get Harry's serradella in the
Rohan Leach: botanical books maybe.
Ian "Harry" Clifton: Yes. That's it.
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