Farm smarter, not harder: new project to help elevate WA beef businesses
09 April 2025
Are you a southern WA beef producer who’s serious about driving innovation on-farm? Interested in finding out what real-world applications are out there to help you secure long-term profitability?
The SMARTBEEF Project, supported by MLA and the Western Australia Livestock Research Council (WALRC), launches later this month. It will offer a select group of WA producers the chance to improve their productivity and profitability through:
- peer collaboration
- data-driven decision making
- practical on-farm improvements.
Commit to change, commit to growth
The SMARTBEEF Project will be made up of various groups, with 10 producers in each. The group members will work together closely – supported by a coordinator and a focus farm – to evaluate their current systems, identify opportunities and implement changes that make a real impact.
Producer Matt Leov, who runs 400 Angus breeding cows in the Albany region, is looking forward to participating in the project as a focus farm host.
“The opportunity to look at what other farms in the area are doing, understand why and look at adopting the best ideas will be a game changer,” Matt said.
“Learning from others, comparing production systems and focusing on cost-effective strategies are some of the things I’m really looking forward to.”
For Matt, this means growing and feeding high-quality pastures to weaners and securing cost-effective feed sources for his cows – all while learning from other producers and applying proven strategies.
Tackling WA’s beef production challenges
From calving and weaning weights, to herd nutrition and managing market options, WA’s southern beef herd faces unique challenges, intensified by climate conditions and shifting market dynamics. That’s why The SMARTBEEF Project team is hoping to assist producers in tackling challenges through practical and collaborative learning.
Project team leader Lucy Anderton emphasised that the project was built around this approach to help drive success for producers.
“This project isn’t about sitting in a room listening to presentations. It’s about producers working together, learning from each other and using practical tools to drive success,” Lucy said.
With host farms, hands-on workshops and access to national researchers, the project will provide producers with the knowledge, strategies and support they need to make confident and informed decisions.
The three core pillars of the project are:
- Financials – Analyse the financials to understand how the current beef business is performing.
- Production systems – Explore changes to improve productivity while maintaining an efficient cost of production.
- Markets – Gain a better understanding of WA’s current beef market and how meeting market specifications can improve the bottom line.
Leverage technology to strengthen your business
An exclusive benefit of getting involved is that participating producers will receive access to myFARMSMART – a farm management and analysis software – to utilise live on-farm data for actionable insights.
“Producers will load their farm data into myFARMSMART and be able to identify inefficiencies and generate scenarios to find the best solutions, like what happens if prices change or if their feed costs change?” Lucy said.
“Another feature of the software is that it does a feed budgeting analysis to work out, for example, the impacts to feed costs if the time of calving is changed.”
Be one of the first
The first producer intake will run across 18 months (April 2025 – September 2026), with just five producer groups.
This project is for southern WA producers who are ready to invest in their business, commit to change and be part of a movement that’s reshaping WA’s beef industry.
Don’t just be another spectator – register now and take your beef enterprise to the next level.
