The top priorities of the north's grassfed beef industry were heard at last week's North Australia Beef Research Council (NABRC) meeting in Brisbane.
Topics such as independent carbon ground truthing and advisory services were debated, with the remaining agenda now being collated and reviewed before it's released to the public.
The three-day event brought together the producer chairs of 11 regional committees from across northern Australia with researchers and industry leaders to discuss issues affecting the productivity, profitability and sustainability of the northern grassfed beef industry.
NABRC chairman Dr John Taylor said the council's determination of priority issues would inform MLA's next call for research, development and extension projects.
"The grassroots input that our regional committees provide has a direct impact on where the industry's livestock levies are invested," Dr Taylor said.
"As an independent association, NABRC breaks down barriers between research scientists and grassroots producers to focus research, development and adoption on technologies and practices that can make a practical difference to producers' lives.
"By connecting producers, researchers and industry stakeholders we can drive improved productivity, profitability and sustainability in the northern grassfed beef industry."
Dr Taylor said NABRC's new list of priorities would also be used to inform the research investments of other stakeholders in the beef industry, such as state government departments and universities.
"The issues identified this week are of critical importance to the northern beef industry's prosperity, with producers expressing a desire for technology and tools that enabled an integrated, systems approach to sustainable grazing land management," he said.
"Being able to quantify carbon sequestration, our environmental services, or carbon ground truthing, that's going to be pretty important.
"It's about demonstrating good stewardship, but it's also being being recognised and being rewarded for doing good work in that space as well."
Dr Taylor said land management and how graziers can measure data efficiently was another interesting topic touched on at the conference.
"Looking into tools that might allow people to measure things like land condition remotely, so that they can actually again demonstrate their credentials," he said.
"Especially in these large remote areas, it's pretty hard to collect some information, so if we can get some techniques and tools that allow us to do that remotely, rather than having to just walk around in a paddock. that would be awesome.
"Another area that came up was aspects of grazing land management, but with a focus on restoring some country that might have had dieback.
"That might mean introducing some new plant species but it might also be the smart use of fire in restoring some of those native pastures."
The conference heard that extension efforts were needed in facilitating improvement to grazing management practices in order to enhance the feedbase available to northern herds.
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