A new programme in Australia is helping soldiers who leave the defence force find work in the cattle industry, and a recent pilot took a group of veterans through every stage of northern beef production.
Diggers to Stockman was founded by Jack Blaine, who moved into the beef industry himself after leaving the Army. He worked on cattle stations, later bought a property with his family in the Northern Rivers region of New South Wales and now sells meat through the Diggers Cattle Company. He said other veterans began asking him for help to get into farming.
"We take guys who are either transitioning out or already have transitioned out of the defence force, then we take them to different cattle operations and get them exposure on different properties and get them some vocational training," Blaine told Beef Central's The Week in Beef podcast.
The pilot began at the McTaggart family's Balcomba Station near Duaringa in central Queensland, with lessons on pasture management and supplementation. The group then went to Camm Agriculture's Longton Station near Pentland, where about 1,000 breeders were processed and pregnancy tested, mustered cattle with V&A Rural Contracting at Cerito Station west of Mackay, and finished at the Signature Beef abattoir and feedlot at Clermont to see the end of the supply chain.
Blaine stressed that the scheme is about careers, not respite. Participants apply, and of this first group one has bought his own property, one is inheriting a farm and another is looking to buy a block. Station staff learned from the visitors too, he said.
He is now registering Diggers to Stockman as a charity and hopes to run it once or twice a year, with more producers opening their gates to veterans. The story was reported by Eric Barker for Beef Central.
Photo: CSIRO / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0)
Source: Beef Central
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