Boosting Beef Producer Discussion Group Project

The Boosting Beef Producer Discussion Group project, consisting of three beef producer discussion located in the north, north west and north east regions of Tasmania has just concluded its first three years of delivery.

Delivered by Pinion Advisory consultants Georgia McCarthy and Jason Lynch, the project was funded by the Tasmanian Beef Industry (Research and Development Trust) for the aim of improving the knowledge, confidence and skills of Tasmanian beef producers, while simultaneously providing a social and mental health benefit for producers who are often working independently and remotely.

The project saw Pinion Advisory take on facilitation of the long-standing Circular Head Beef Producers Group (running since 1975) and establish a further two producer discussion groups – Boosting Beef Central Midlands and Boosting Beef North East, with the objective of delivering technical information to upskill beef producers through supported peer-to-peer learning.

Each producer group held three on-farm sessions per year to cover seasonally relevant technical content, participate in a farm tour and catch up over an afternoon barbeque. These sessions were further supported over the project lifetime by online webinars, print and electronic resources and collaboration with industry organisations to deliver more in-depth technical sessions.

Highlights of the project include the delivery of a wide range of technical content relating to all aspects of grass-fed beef production, and the increase in confidence and skill of participants in tactical feed budgeting skills such as pasture management, calculating pasture growth rates and animal feed requirements and setting grazing rotations.

Over the three years of project delivery each group saw an increase in membership and engagement, with monitoring and evaluation results reflecting consistently high (>8.5/10) participation satisfaction and value ratings for group activities across the project lifetime.

Planning for 2026 delivery of the discussion groups is currently underway and Tasmanian beef producers interested in joining one of the Boosting Beef discussion groups can sign up to be added to the discussion group mailing list where they will be notified of discussion group events and other relevant training resources.