L.SFP.1012 - 13.06.2022

Summary

This project supported the L.SFP.1000 Environmental Credentials for Australian Beef project, which aims to develop an environmental sustainability tool accessible to all grass-fed beef producers wanting to measure and demonstrate their sustainable production practices and gain access to resources to help them improve their performance in these areas. This will enable them to take advantage of emerging opportunities presented by markets and supply chains looking to access red meat with verified environmental credentials.

Objectives

The objectives for this project were as follows:
- Collaborate with the Environmental Credentials for Australian Beef consortium to deliver high-quality facilitation of co-design five environmental measurement and monitoring themes.
- Participate in co-design workshop debriefs and contribute insights and observations from the co-design meetings and process to the project team.
- Facilitate up to 35 separate working group meetings, with a maximum of 10 members per group.

All three objectives have been successfully achieved.

Key findings

A total of 33 online meetings were facilitated from 12/10/2021 to 19/5/2022. All the meetings were delivered on-time, on budget and to a high standard. The facilitation of the meetings worked well and enabled representatives from the beef value chain from across Australia to easily contribute their thoughts and ideas to the Environmental Credentials for Australian Beef project.

Benefits to industry

The provision of online meetings enabled a wide geographic cross-section of those involved in the beef value chain to contribute their thoughts and ideas to the Environmental Credentials for Beef project. This style of delivery removed the usual requirement for travel and accommodation, and minimised time away from their businesses and families.

MLA action

For future engagement, MLA plans to use virtual meetings as a means of connecting with producers. The final report from this project is being shared on the MLA R&D reports website.

Future research

It is recommended that online meetings be considered more often for future engagement options with graziers. While physical meetings are often thought of as the preferred option for producers, the experience in this project indicated they are not only able, but very willing to use online meeting options.