More than 300 people attended the Gippsland Red Meat conference, on February 18, with dairy farmers among attendees.
Stratford dairy farmer Jess Knight was a speaker on a panel of women farmers in one of the afternoon presentations.
Jess gained a law degree before buying a dairy farm with her partner, Stephen.
They have worked together ever since, building their future in the dairy industry.
Jess was until recently on the board of GippsDairy as a farmer representative.
She publishes a blog and a podcast about her life as a dairy farmer.
Conference sponsor Meat and Livestock Australia was represented by analysts Simon Quilty, and Robert Hermanns from Mercado discussed the red meat market domestically and globally.
They talked about meat processors that have increased chilled infrastructure capacity in Australia.
In 2024, this increased the weekly beef kill by 13,000 head.
Simon Quilty said a herd rebuild in the United States would lessen beef supply from the US into markets where Australia competes.
Robert Hermanns said Australian cattle were a source of trim meat for US mince.
The increased chilled capacity will have flow-on effects to cow prices.
Laura Grubb, from Greenham’s, told attendees that dairy cows were strongly sought for trim meat for minced meat in the US.
Professor Richard Eckard updated attendees with knowledge about methane and farm production systems.
Veterinarian Dr Enoch Bergman talked about building a better cow by optimising the success of heifers.