HEALTHY soils on a Geurie grazing property in the Central West are producing native pastures capable of finishing cattle and sheep all year round while achieving weight gains in cattle of up to three kilograms a day.
This 2800-hectare livestock enterprise, which includes direct-to-customer meat sales, is based from “Gilgai”, run by Eric and Wendy Harvey, their son, Luke; Eric’s sister, Rhonda Willson, and their parents, Albert and Perle Harvey.
In 2000, the family broadened its horizons from its investment in a Singaporean-based business making springs (used in everything from the automotive industry to computers and ballpoint pens).
The Harveys decided to put their money and efforts into livestock, starting with two farms in 2000, which had grown to seven by 2007.
Eric Harvey said these farms were of mixed condition when they took them on, but through a planned improvement program and with the aid of Catchment Management Authority grants, the holdings had been significantly improved.
After looking seriously at the farms’ ecology, he stopped using chemicals and began weaning the enterprise off chemical fertilisers.
“(Instead), we’re doing compost fertilisers, which is brewing soil microbes from compost and putting these microbes back into the soil,” he said.
The costs were just 15 to 20 per cent of conventional fertilisers and the new no-kill cropping systems were costing about $49/ha for crops such as grazing oats, barley or cereal rye.
This was low-risk farming with an aim of encouraging the soil biology.
It was also increasing the property’s resilience to weather extremes through increased groundcover, soil carbon and biodiversity, Mr Harvey said.
“When you get your soil health right, then the species (fauna and flora) come,” he said.
He said once this happened, the humus layer began to develop and the moisture capturing and retention potential of the soil increased, boosting its capacity for production and buffering the system from drought.
Mr Harvey said this approach had created a niche market for the family’s meat, which came from their pure Grathlyn-blood Merino flock and their pure Simmental beef herd.
“We don’t call ourselves organic – maybe biological,” he said.
Livestock are handled in a low-stress environment, and the meat is marketed as free from chemical and artificial hormones.
The biggest consumer market for this type of product had been young mothers wanting a healthy product for their families – sales are made as far afield as Emerald in Queensland to Adelaide and across NSW.
“We find we are selling to young mothers more and more, but they’re even chipping us because we still have a preservative (223) in our sausages,” he said.
However, all the products are gluten- and MSG-free.
The other strong market base was older consumers who grew up with grass-finished beef and were chasing the meat for a flavour they remembered from their youth.
On average, the meat packs sold for about $15 a kilogram, and boneless, except for the chops and shanks from the Merino hoggets.
Through the use of computer software, the Harveys have also recorded the changes in the property, with the carrying capacity on the natural pasture system lifting from two dry sheep equivalent (DSE) a hectare in 2006 to six DSE/ha in 2010.
He said the change was primarily brought about by a shift in thinking, from being production-focused to profit-focused.
In 2001, under the conventional farming system, they were making about $1000/ha, but costing $1100/ha.
By creating the healthy soils and ecologically sound environment, which allowed a shift to direct marketing, the family had been able to value-add under the Gilgai Farms label and therefore set the price.
The increased production has simply been a bonus.
Cattle which don’t make the grade for the Gilgai label are sold through the local saleyards, which Mr Harvey said provided a comparison benchmark as to how well his system was stacking up.
He found the Gilgai brand was achieving two to three times the saleyard price for cattle sold direct in a meat pack.
The sheep are under some scrutiny, however, having recently received $110 a head for hogget Merino ewes.
Merino meat from hoggets returns about $200/h from a 25kg carcase, but it costs $85 to process and transport, plus a lot of extra work when compared with simply selling through saleyards.
The family business board, which meets every three months under an independent chairman, is due to review the Merino enterprise’s performance.
Visit www.gilgaifarms.com.au
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