Department supports indigenous communities
An officer from the department’s Aboriginal Business Development (ABD) project accompanied indigenous landowners attending the annual Indigenous Cattlemen’s Workshop (ICW) in South Australia recently.
The department’s ABD project supports Aboriginal agricultural businesses in governance, business development, mentoring, planning and training.
Broome-based ABD Development Officer Daisy Goodwin travelled with three young Aboriginal women from Lamboo station and Yallalie farm to Port Augusta where they presented to workshop attendees.
Hosted by the Indigenous Land Corporation, participants, of which about one-third where Aboriginal women, travelled from remote pastoral stations across the country to take part.
The WA representatives travelled about 3277km from Lamboo Station in the Kimberley and 2400km from Yallalie Farm in the Mid-west region.
ABD has worked closely with Lamboo station for more than a decade. Station manager Robin Yeeda has been helped on the property by his niece Darrylin Gordon who may become the station’s first female manager.
The other two women, Lexi Mourambine and Madeline Anderson, are from Beemura Aboriginal Corporation (BAC) on Yallalie farm near Moora.
BAC runs the only Aboriginal-managed backgrounding business in WA which involves managing cattle on behalf of their owner until they reach the desired market weight. Unlike agistment, their profit depends on performance and weight gain.
The 13th annual Indigenous Cattlemen’s Workshop
The ICW was held over three days and topics covered included business management, mental health and suicide awareness, best pastoral practice, work health and safety and natural resource management.
Each of the ten participating properties completed a presentation on their station’s successes and challenges.
Darrylin Gordon spoke of Lamboo’s ability to decrease their cost of production while increasing production rates due to improved infrastructure and herd management.
Lexi and Madeline spoke of how beef backgrounding works, elaborating on the practices that allowed them to achieve a weight gain of at least 0.5kg per head each day. Key to their success has been their use of perennial pastures and cell grazing.
Participants also had the opportunity to visit Emeroo Farm and Roxby Downs station to learn about work health and safety in the field.
At the end of the workshop, the group agreed that hearing each other’s presentations was the most beneficial part of the week, allowing them to celebrate their strengths and share common challenges.
Darrylin, Lexi and Madeline, referred to as the ‘power trio’, left the workshop feeling inspired and proud of themselves and are already excited for next year’s workshop.