Cropping Enabled Cattle project

The ground-breaking Cropping Enabled Cattle project is strengthening industry synergies across the cropping and cattle sectors of tropical northern WA, looking at new ways to enable pastoralists to tap into the production potential of the Ord River Irrigation Area.

This $6 million initiative is a co-investment between the WA Agricultural Research Collaboration (WAARC) and several partners, including the Cooperative Research Centre for Developing Northern Australia (CRCNA) and the Cotton Research and Development Corporation (CRDC).

The project is a great example of what WAARC was set up to achieve.

It is building enduring research capacity and capability in WA, delivering meaningful research outcomes, and helping future-proof the pastoral beef sector by growing productivity and profitability.

The Cropping Enabled Cattle project is achieving this by:

• looking to create better synergies between the diverse Ord River Irrigation Area and Western Australia’s long-running northern pastoral sector.
• growing future beef production options in the State’s north, delivering benefits that could extend across Australia’s top end.
• evaluating the potential for feed products generated from irrigated crops in the Ord (such as high-protein cotton seed and meal, maize and other grass silage) to contribute to local cattle-feeding systems and produce an animal that is more widely marketable.
• evaluating new technology for measuring animal welfare and physiological responses in tropical feeding systems.
• building research capacity with the creation of three new regional roles in Kununurra and the establishment of joint PhD appointments with WAARC partners.