Agricultural historical accuracy in film & television dramas

November 10th, 2011

Today I discovered that I’m not the only one who notices agricultural errors in film and television dramas. William Hayes of the Meat Trade News Daily is well placed to comment on livestock breeds in the south of England where he grew up.  ‘You see these magnificent period dramas, with beautiful costumes and every detail just right […]

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Humans obtain more energy from cooked meat

November 10th, 2011

Harvard University researchers have released the results of a very thorough study which measured the availability of energy from eating meat or sweet potato that is still raw or has been cooked. The observations are fascinating – in summary – more net energy is obtained from eating cooked meat than raw.  No wonder my hairdresser is as thin as a stick, […]

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Foreign ownership of rural land is restricted or even prohibited, in many other countries

November 9th, 2011

Xavier Duff has included some interesting facts in a  Weekly Times article on foreign investment.  He mentions that foreign ownership of rural land is regulated in many other countries.  Other countries, presumably most of them, require that all rural land owned by foreigners is registered with the federal government (eg USA).  Some countries restrict the amount of land that can […]

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Lyn White, Animals Australia campaigner, Australian of the Year finalist

November 9th, 2011

The Weekly Times are running a poll on whether Lyn White should be Australian of the Year.  Lyn White is the Communications Director for the animal rights extremist organisation, Animals Australia, and Lyn was instrumental in providing footage to the 4-Corners programme that resulted in the live export ban.  Doubts have since been cast about the reliability […]

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Cargill

November 8th, 2011

David Whitford (with Doris Burke) has written a comprehensive article on a famously private company, Cargill, titled  ‘Cargill:  Inside the quiet giant that rules the food business’.  The article was written for Fortune and appears on the CNN Money website, and is well worth a read by anyone interested in food security, quality and affordability […]

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Vestey cattle properties resumed by Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez

November 3rd, 2011

The British company ‘Vestey Group’  was founded in 1897 by brothers William and Edmund Vestey.  Around the early 1900’s the Vestey family company had begun purchasing agricultural land in South American countries and Australia, and over the decades the company developed vertical integration – cattle stations, meatworks (eg at Wyndham [WA], Bullocky Point in Darwin [NT] and Lakes Creek […]

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Our quarantine breach punishments are a sad joke

November 1st, 2011

A Peruvian bloke found guilty of smuggling an Andean saddle-backed tamarin monkey and a yellow-footed tortoise into Australia in July last year, just received a $6,000 fine.  It’s also mentioned that he aspires to be a doctor and is in his second year of a medical degree.   Well he can’t be blind and deaf and has a reasonable education, so […]

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Keeping up with the Joneses, Episode 9 on Channel Ten

October 31st, 2011

Keeping up with the Joneses, Episode 9 – back to work at last.  We discover that the chopper crash which we’ve seen glimpses of since the first series screened last year, was in fact not an NAH chopper.  Milton described it as a ‘neighbours’ chopper.  VH-HYE was manufactured in 1990 and had been registered to Venlock Pty […]

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Bush Heritage Australia – and another exercise in misguided self-congratulation

October 25th, 2011

Read the latest load of hot air on the urban academics saving threatened species by purchasing ‘flogged out Simpson desert cattle stations’; if you can concentrate on the words above the racket the chorus of angels is making:  Old cattle stations now wildlife haven. It’s yet another self-congratulatory article spouting on about how well the environment is […]

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Australian Women’s Weekly and Meat & Livestock Australia photo competition

October 24th, 2011

The Australian Women’s Weekly Magazine (AWW) and Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) are running a brand new photography competition titled ‘Champions of the Land’.  Details are included on page 214 in the November 2011 issue of The Australian’s Women’s Weekly Summary of entry details: Entry in the ‘Champions of the Land’ photo competition is open from 26 […]

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