Head Shepherd
Mark Ferguson from neXtgen Agri brings you the latest in livestock, genetics, innovation and technology. We focus on sheep and beef farming in Australia and New Zealand, and the people doing great things in those industries. To learn more about neXtgen Agri, visit www.nextgenagri.com.
Head Shepherd
‘Animal science Down Under’ with Alan Bell
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This week on the podcast we have Professor Emeritus of Animal Science at Cornell University, Alan Bell, discussing his recent paper ‘Animal science Down Under: a history of research, development and extension in support of Australia’s livestock industries’.
In this paper, Alan discusses how back in 1788, as you may have guessed, “There wasn't any real systematic research done on the livestock side,” with the advances in the industry being achieved by the producers. He says, “It was really the innovative farmers, who were battling in a very foreign environment, to make money eventually, that had some wonderful successes.”
Alan runs through the following years, with the establishment of agricultural departments and colleges, before and between the two World Wars, with CSIRO being one of the most influential.
Later, in the 1960s and 1970s, agriculture research was in what Alan calls the ‘golden years’. A time for practically limitless scientific exploration, mostly funded by the Wool Board, but also encouraged by strong political support and led by particular scientific ‘visionaries’. “Maybe that's just nostalgia, but I tell people that I began my career at the end of the golden era,” says Alan.
The 1970s and 1980s brought a more structured approach, with markets being more uncertain and funding being allocated elsewhere. However, through government initiatives and the introduction of levies, great research was still performed. For example, the beginnings of genomics for production and health traits.
Mark and Alan finish off by discussing the current state of research in agriculture and where it’s heading in the future.
This is a wonderful podcast and a must-listen for anyone interested in agriculture, history and the science that built the foundations of a great industry.
You can find Alan's paper here:
https://www.publish.csiro.au/an/pdf/AN19161
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Livestock Research and Development History
Speaker 1Welcome to the Head Shepherd podcast . I'm your host , mark Ferguson , ceo here at NextGen Agri International , where we help livestock managers get the best out of their stock . Before we get started , thank you to our two fantastic sponsors for continuing to sponsor this podcast . Msd Animal Health is perhaps better known as Cooper's Animal Health in Australia and for their Allflex range across the world with a comprehensive suite of animal health and management products . Heinegger is a one-stop shop for wool harvesting and animal fibre removal . The Heinegger team have a deep understanding of livestock agriculture , backed by Swiss engineering and a family business dedicated to manufacturing the best . We are grateful to our sponsors for their support , helping us bring Head Shepherd to you each week , and now it's time to get on with this week's episode .
Speaker 1Welcome back to Head Shepherd . Before we get underway with this week's show , just a quick shout out to the organisers of Lamex . They've done a fantastic job of pulling together that event and all the sponsors that have underwritten that opportunity for sheep producers around the world , obviously focused in Australia , but more than welcome to get anyone from anywhere that's interested in lamb production particularly along . It's in Adelaide 7th to the 9th of August . The program's out now , so jump on Google LambX and check out that program and sign up . We'll have a fair contingent from NextGen there . You'll see I'm talking about our AI technology on one of the sessions and some good speakers along there , and a great opportunity to celebrate a fantastic industry . So if you can get yourself into Adelaide in the early part of August , it'll be a great opportunity to catch up with us and other producers that are passionate about making a difference in the livestock industry .
Speaker 1This week on the show we've got Professor Emeritus of Animal Science at Cornell University , alan Bell . Alan spent a lot of his career over in Cornell as animal scientist and then at the end of his career moved back into Australia and was the chief of CSIRO Livestock Industries . And we invited Alan along to talk about a paper he's written called Animal Science Down Under , which looks at the history of R&D . So it's a bit less of looking back at the history , I guess , of R&D and reflecting on the great things that have happened over those years . So buckle in and listen to Professor Alan Bell . Welcome Alan Bell to Head Shepard .
Speaker 2Thanks , mark , good to be here .
Speaker 1Excellent , alan , the reason we're chatting today . You've got a long career in animal science . Sorry that makes me sound old , but you've written a paper called Animal Science Down Under which is a history of the sort of livestock research , development and extension since the English first turned up in Australia . So it's an interesting opportunity today to sort of talk through something that probably people haven't really considered that much as to . We sort of often think about where we are today in terms of research , but often we sort of often think about where we are today in terms of research , but often we sort of forget what's happened before and there's always the risk that we're repeating stuff or repeating mistakes that we've made before . So it's important to look back at history and stop that happening .
Speaker 2I think that's why old farts get interested in history . Mark , I'm not sure I was that interested when I was your age . Put it that way .
Speaker 1I'm not sure I was that interested when I was your age . Put it that way , I'm sort of sneaking towards the middle of that ground too , unfortunately . But anyway , yeah , looking back I guess , yeah , I mean maybe just run us through the sort of 230 years of livestock production in Australia . I don't know how easy it is to summarize that , but I'll let you give it a crack .
Speaker 2Australia . I don't know how easy it is to summarise that , but I'll let you give it a crack . Well , I unashamedly stole information from several good books actually that have dealt particularly with the history of agriculture in Australia livestock as well as cropping and other stuff and I really just wanted to do that as a sort of a preface to the more scientific sort of account , to give some context . But you know , as I got into it , I found it very interesting . There's some , you know , very interesting backstories and , as you do , some of the background reading , for example , a topic that you know is familiar to you , the history of the wool industry in Australia , I think is quite fascinating . There's a lot of misconceptions , a lot of misattributions . Yeah , john MacArthur gets a big shout from a lot of people , but as you dig in you find out a couple of things . One is that his wife , Elizabeth , I think , was a much better manager of sheep than he was , and he wasn't a very nice man either , because he went mad at the end . But the books by Charles Massey I don't know whether you've read them they're great . I mean , there's so much history beyond just a dry sort of account of who did what and you know what levels of production were and so forth , colourful characters , some really heroic sort of efforts .
Speaker 2And I think I made the comment in the early part of the paper that really during the 19th century there wasn't much formal science being done in Australia around agriculture . They were preoccupied with land rights and with animal diseases , at least trying to ward them off . But there wasn't any real systematic research done on the livestock side , nothing like what was done with crop genetics , for example . William Farrar there was no William F Farrow on the livestock side . You know in that century it was really innovative farmers you know who were battling in a very foreign environment to make money eventually and some you know wonderful successes . You know the Pepin family is really who should get the credit for the modern merino , basically . Family is really who should get the credit for the modern merino , basically . And you know they were scrupulous in their efforts to select animals that would thrive and produce in the environments in which they're existing . That's not a novel concept today but I think it probably was back then without them even realising .
Speaker 1Yeah for sure , and that's a couple of interesting things to pick up there , one being that crop science had started to evolve whereas livestock hadn't . That's intriguing , and probably lots of people would argue that they're still in front in terms of the amount of science and effort and input that happens .
Speaker 2Well , yeah , there's a number of ways of looking at that . Uh , there was quite a lot of work , you know , systematic nutrition um , I won't call it genetics , but certainly animal breeding being done in the northern hemisphere , you know , even in in the late 18th century , but not much of that translated into you know . Know what was going on in Australia , whereas still very much nutrition was just , you know , making sure that there was enough native pasture to keep your animals going over the long haul . And that was a lot of trial and error . Animal disease .
Speaker 2They , yeah , pasteur , had , you know , done his thing , but in terms of defining microbiological causes , but I think in Australia , you know , it was still trial and error . They didn't care too much , I think , about the underlying principles and biology , but they did know that , you know , for diseases like sheep scab , for example , which was an absolutely terrible disease , they knew they had to find treatments , acaricides , and they eventually figured out that they had to have some sort of organisational approach to it in terms of , ultimately , an eradication program which they actually managed to eradicate that disease before 1900 . So , you know , there were these efforts going on , but it was nothing like what we would consider modern science .
Speaker 1So I mean maybe one more question on that area , which is Pep and family . What did they do differently , or what was it about them that helped them achieve what they achieved ? And that'll be mainly from Charlie Massey's book , no doubt .
Speaker 2Yeah , look , I should go back and read that book again because I should have read it a long time ago , but it was only when I started writing this thing that I actually did finally get into it .
Speaker 2I know he attributes a lot of the success to I can't remember the guy's name , but he was a very famous wool classer who , you know , wasn't a trained animal breeder , let alone a geneticist , but he apparently was very good at putting a sort of a , collecting the data that was necessary to , you know , to describe performance , keeping excellent individual animal records so he could ultimately create pedigrees , and it was his idea , I think , that it was important to select animals for their performance in a given environment that they were expected to produce in . They also did a fair bit of crossbreeding , you know , crossbreeding Spanish Merinos with longer-walled English breeds , the Leicester particularly . I think that was a novel thing . They were pretty keen on plain-bodied sheep , I believe , even though the Vermont wrinklies somehow crept in , you know , during that century . But yeah , and they're only really . They made this big , indelible mark only over a period of 10 or 15 years . I understand it wasn't sort of a decades-long endeavour , it happened quite quickly and I mean , as you well know , the influence is still pervasive in .
Speaker 1Australia ? Yeah for sure . So then into the 20th century and a couple of wars to deal with , and so it seems like from your paper that after the Second World War is when things really kicked away research-wise .
Speaker 2Yeah , yeah , look , if I can just make , cut me off .
Speaker 1if I'm starting to wander a bit here .
Speaker 2But something I should give a comment on is , towards the end of the 19th century almost every state had created a Department of Agriculture , a state-sponsored Department of Agriculture , and soon afterwards again in almost every state . Those organizations were responsible for creating colleges of agriculture , you know , for training young people mostly want to be farmers , you know , and those were very important events . You know , we've lost the colleges now , I think , which is a terrible shame for vocational agriculture , vocational training in agriculture . But you know , the the departments are still there . Their remit has changed quite a bit , as I talk about towards the end of the paper , but those were very important events .
Evolution of Agricultural Science in Australia
Speaker 2And then other important institutions began to appear in the early 20th century schools of agriculture and veterinary science , at least at Sydney University and Melbourne University . Even though they struggled to get off the ground , partly , I think , because of the First War , they got their origins at that time and then came , ultimately , what became the CSIRO , originally the CSIR , which included , you know , some of the early divisions , included Division of Animal Health and Division of Animal Nutrition , which I think you know reflected the general feeling that these were the areas that badly needed to be addressed if Australia was going to have successful livestock industries and so quite a lot happened during the 20s and 30s . But it was a struggle . Post-war , the Depression had a huge sort of dampening effect on all aspects of agricultural enterprise , I suppose . But where there was an opportunity to put resources , the government was definitely highlighting crop production , for good reason People needed to be fed , but some important things happened . But , as you commented a moment ago , it really wasn't until after the Second War that things really took off and I called that the golden era in the paper . Maybe that's just nostalgia , but I tell people that I began my career at the end of the golden era at CSIRO prospect , where you know they were still riding off the sheep's back .
Speaker 280% of the the funding for for that , for that lab , came just directly from the wool board , no questions asked . Yeah , you know the chief . Ian McDonald was the chief . He's a famous scientist . I hardly knew him but I was in awe of him . I guess this is in the late 60s . As far as I know , none of the individual scientists had to write annual reports or , you know , performance against milestones that was a totally foreign concept . But Ian used to meet with a bloke called George Mole , who had been CSIRO or , I think , or CSIR , before the war , I think . But he was a mate of McDonald's for sure , and he was like the scientific liaison officer for the the war board and they'd have dinner together and at the end of the dinner Mole would pull an envelope out of his jacket I don't know and in that envelope would be a check which would pretty much float the boat for the next year , you know , millions of dollars it is .
Speaker 1Just amazing . If that's not the golden era , I don't know what is , but it was like yeah , but you know things started to change in the early 70s .
Speaker 2I'm going to say it's all been downhill , but I don't think at the time we realised just how good things were in that reasonably early post-war period .
Speaker 1I'm assuming , by the kinds of research that you read from those days , that you could almost if you wanted to study the sexual behaviour of earthworms . There was nothing really stopping you . It was kind of any scientist with an interest could almost pursue their passion .
Speaker 2Well , I'll tell you a little story . That's basically true , although you know I think my first boss at Prospect was a guy called George Alexander , who I'm sure you've heard of , and George took his responsibility to the Australian sheep industry very seriously , and I won't say that some of the super scientists at Prospect all felt quite the same obligation . I won't name names , but there was a very well-known scientist whose job really was skin and wool biology okay , for obvious reasons , but he had this pet project going that everybody knew about but no one talked about openly , and it only came to light at the celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Prospect Lab , which would have been in the 80s , long after I left there and I happened to be at that time I was working at the Trove that I used to get up to Pros prospect for a month every year to do work that I couldn't do in Melbourne , and it just coincided with this 50th anniversary and the scientists concerned had been running a banditry for you know 20 or 30 years , just on the side . You know when he was getting the money for it , I don't know , but that's what he really loved doing and he made a film that was shown at that anniversary event , which was worth looking .
Speaker 2If you ever you might want to Google the pouch life of the bandicoot , there you go . You know you've heard of the Birth of the Red Kangaroo , which is a famous film . Well , this is the bandicoot equivalent . Know you've heard of the birth of the red kangaroo , which is a famous film ? Well , this is the bandicoot equivalent . And he was able to do that . I'm just using that as a sort of a semi-humorous sort of example .
Speaker 1Yeah , having studied skin biology as an honours , I'm thinking it's between one or two people that wrote a fair few books about skin biology of sheep , people that wrote a fair bit of a fair few books about skin biology of sheep .
Speaker 1So , yeah , excellent , yeah , but I guess yeah , I mean , while there's something amazing about scientists and giving them free will at the in terms of discovery , like I remember , I think I'll ever forget the first six months of a phd where I had the opportunity to pretty much just think and dream up a project and kind of almost did behave a bit like one of those scientists , because there was no real limit to what I could or couldn't do and I had resources around me , thanks to Norm Adams and Jan Bregel and all the others that saw that , yeah , just a really , really , really really fortunate time to be there and , with the Sheep's House , sea and a whole heap of good things came together . But it is , yeah , you do get some really interesting science done when you're not spending all your time writing proposals and living in the purchase provider model .
Speaker 2I agree . It's just somehow finding the balance , yeah .
Agricultural Research and Extension Evolution
Speaker 1One of the things you concluded and talk about in the paper is that sort of disconnect between , or an accidental disconnect between , sort of research and extension , which is probably a legacy that had to deal with for a fair while , and we , as recently as last week , uh , in a in a meeting with a range of RDCs talking about , I guess , better extension or getting getting stuff out of filing cabinets and into into on farm , I suppose , is the easiest way of putting that . So it sounds like that was sort of no one's real intention . It's just kind of how it evolved .
Speaker 2Well , yeah , look , I don't know the detailed background to this . Lindsay Falvey wrote a book that you know . Background to this . Lindsay Falvey wrote a book that you know had some commentary about what he called the choice of the European model versus the American model . My thoughts on this are definitely biased by my experience , you know , 22 years working at Cornell where you know the land-grant model was in full swing .
Speaker 2I won't pretend it was perfect , but when you've got world-famous researchers who can just walk across the corridor and talk to another professor not you know some agent or extension officer who's working remotely , but an extension leader who also has to do applied research , but an extension leader who also has to do applied research who might do much of his or her work on commercial farms and who talks to farmers all the time , it's a two-way thing .
Speaker 2And so you know , when I work with guys like Dale Bowman , who I still think is probably the most accomplished animal scientist I've ever come across , who you know , he he could get up in front of farmers and talk about his science , but he got a lot of his information and , you know , understanding of what was important to the industry , as I say , just by walking across the corridor and talking to his colleagues who are on farms every day .
Speaker 2And , as you well know , there are people in Australia , individuals in Australian universities , who can do that , but they do it despite the system , not because of the system , but I think it is changing a bit . You know , I think I don't know how much you took notice of the so-called Armtech project that was led by your old mates at Murdoch Graham Gardner in particular , and Pethick had a lot to do with it and I chaired the progress assessment committee , that sort of oversaw that , for six years , and it really encouraged me a lot because they really took the extension side of the project very seriously . And not only did they engage in this case more with the meat processing than the meat production industry , but both sides , but they also trained a bunch of postdocs who were strongly encouraged to spend time out with the business end of the industry , which I think is extremely important .
Speaker 1Yeah , I mean , I guess it may be naive . I know it should be hard-pressed to find a scientist in ag that isn't fairly embedded in industry just because that's how funding has moved . I guess probably the greater risk and I'll take your much-learned opinion on this , but the greater risk is probably the lack of pure science occurring because maybe that pendulum has swung more to where everyone's got to be an extension officer .
Speaker 2I'm not sure I totally agree . The system still doesn't . I mean , the reason why Graham and Dave and co were able to do what they did is because they still are big fish in a relatively small pond at Murdoch . They bring in more money than , I think , just about anywhere else in the university , so they're tolerated . But you go to some of the longer established universities and look around , yes , you'll find individuals I can name half a dozen very quickly but still the reward system and promotion encouragement is still heavily skewed towards you know your actual research performance , not assessed by its impact on agricultural production , but by what journals you get published in and you know what the citation index says about those journals . So it's moving . It's moving . But when I came back to Australia I really was back in , you know , the early 2000s , to finish up at CSIRO . I was discouraged quite a lot .
Speaker 1Yeah , that's probably a good point . I tend to live in a bubble a bit and work with lots of researchers that are embedded in industry and don't have much to do .
Speaker 2Well , that's the nature of your contact world . I think yeah , yeah , Anyway , but it is looking better in Australia . New Zealand's been better at this for a longer time than Australia overall , in my mind .
Speaker 1Yeah , and I think that has remained and does remain with most farmers would be able to name at least one Massey professor , if not a couple of them . Yeah , certainly probably same at Lincoln . I guess a feature of the last 40 years 30 , 40 years has been the cooperative research centres and I think they probably were significant investments between , and I guess they were similar to , the primary growth partnerships in New Zealand in the sense that was to some extent there was industry and government had to be together Like one , couldn't ? They sort of had the similar model .
Speaker 2I suppose I can't make that comparison because I'm not personally familiar with the New Zealand experience , but the CRCs , I think , were an excellent creation and they're still going . It's just that in livestock in Australia at the moment all the major sectors have had at least one . You know , six or seven years CRC funding experience and for the most part I think it was very successful . You know there's a lot of overheads and a lot of unnecessary wrangling over IP , which I think you know is disappointing , but in general they were successful . The other , I think the other really important government policy , if you like , or creation was of the research and development corporations , but both by the Hawke government . By the way , this was not by a conservative government with historic leanings towards agriculture . It was Hawken Coe who created the RDCs , particularly John Keran . I don't know whether you ever came across John , but he was a great guy , a great person , you know , but also a very astute agricultural economist who I think many people I still talk to , who are not necessarily , you know , on the left side of politics , would still concur that he was probably the best minister for agriculture they ever came across , very far-sighted . Yeah , I think very highly of him . So you know the RDCs provided like an industry-sensitive mechanism for funding , in that at least for RD&E , not for marketing , which is where some of the funds would go the government fully matched , the federal government fully matched . So you know that gave the general public a stake in agricultural R&D .
Speaker 2But that's a model that hasn't really been emulated in many other places in the world , certainly not in North America , and they're quite envious because check-offs , you know , levy funds , we call the farmer contributions in North America , particularly the States , they call them check-offs and that's like a red flag to many producers . It's tantamount to socialism , you know . But you know it that's , but you know , uh , it served australia very well . The crcs were all about more efficient use of those funds . Yeah , you know , yeah , and uh , I think I tried to document those two organizational creations , if you like , because I think they were very , very important yeah , it's kind of easy , I suppose , to assume these things have always been the case .
Speaker 1So RDC is standing for Research and Development Corporation . But obviously they haven't been .
Speaker 2No , they weren't created until the mid-late 80s . Well , it wasn't called an RDC . Levees were . Well , the one industry that was levied much earlier was the wool industry , and that began in the late 30s , but it took almost half a century before there was coverage of all the ag sectors . In Australia Now there's 15 RDCs . I think seven of them are in livestock . But the notion of having farmers pay for the work that was going to hopefully benefit them wasn't a novel one . It just was applied in a very limited way for quite a long time .
Speaker 1Yeah , history is not always a good predictor of the future , but I guess if we kind of reflect on where we are now and I don't know , I often think about kind of people I've come up through my career and those that were there before me and I guess in that time it feels like , well , when I went to Ciro's , florida , in my PhD , I think there was probably 30 or 40 people in the livestock industries group , group which is now either very little or changed into a group , different group , and then same at when I was at pastoral veterinary institute at hamilton , hundreds there now , tens , twenties , whatever , and same across all those institutions , probably other than other than universities , and so it feels like there's a lot less training ground for scientists . Is that where your paper ended up , or did that again have a different conclusion ?
Speaker 2Slightly different conclusion . I think as a community , as an education and research community , we certainly shrunk , but I'm not totally pessimistic about where we are right now . I think we we've got to keep our finger on the on the pulse of this and , you know , keep pushing for for more funding . But but I think you know , at the same time , agriculture as a contributor to gdp in australia has greatly diminished , not just because of the growth of mining , partly , but not just . So that's a reality . You know we are a more diverse and more broadly based sort of productive community than we were even in the 50s , when wool production was still , you know , one of the biggest industries in Australia . So you know these are realities .
Speaker 2But people still have to be fed and clothed and more and more people in the world are going to need those , you know , essential commodities . So we have a grand challenge . We've got to keep producing food . We've got to produce it in a way that is not only going to create volume but also optimize health and quality and so forth , the nature of that food . We've got to stop it from being infected by all sorts of nasties that are ever-present . We've got to do all this without wrecking the you know the planet . So there's some grand projects out there for young people to get involved in , but it's not going to be the sort of broad , blanket sort of approach that we were able to indulge in after the war .
Speaker 1Yeah , you point it out perfectly Like . The complexity is , I'm sure , complex back then , but it's no less now . The size of the job in front of ag scientists or animal scientists is the same as it's always been . There's different pressures , but they're still enormous , so there's still plenty of opportunity . And I think you point out this is the last conclusion in in your paper that we've sort of now got less than two percent of australia is directly involved in commercial production of food or fiber and it's a um yeah , it's a very different scenario than what it would have been back in the golden golden era absolutely .
Speaker 2You know , I think most , most australians , certainly between the wars , would have had at least one parent who grew up on a farm . Lots of rallies and so forth , so a different level of understanding . But you know , the industries are still important , they just have to be . I think the work that we do for them has to be done differently , has to be a lot more cooperative , you know , in terms of the way resources are shared and skills are deployed and bringing in non-traditional skill bases as well , not just the people that look like you that went to ag school with you .
Speaker 1I think . That's probably , and we might end there , but it's probably the most exciting thing to me , I think , is the people like we've got some work in machine learning and so it's people that have got no real background , or they're engineering students and they're passionate about data and things , but they love having an agricultural problem in front of them because it's real and it's something different .
Speaker 2And it's real and the opportunity is enormous if we do it right .
Speaker 1Yes , I think that that's where research goes and that'll be , hopefully , the next golden era . But yeah , it's going to be really intriguing to see where these new skills , new technologies , can take agriculture into the future . Absolutely agree . Thanks very much for your time , alan . We really appreciate you coming on the show . It's a solid read , but we'll put the link to the paper in the show notes . I think it was 29 pages , was it including references ? That's fair , it took a week or two to write . It was a bit longer than that actually . Oh , 39 , actually , wasn't it ? Yeah ?
Speaker 2As I say yeah , I think it was , but anyway , yeah , wayne Bryden , who's the editor-in-chief of Animal Production Science , was very how shall I say flexible . Yeah , but he's getting old too , so he likes history yeah excellent , very good .
Speaker 1Thanks very much . It was a pleasure . Thanks , mate . Thanks again to Heinegger , who are proud world leaders in the manufacturing and supply of professional sheep shearing and clipping equipment . Thank you to MNSD Animal Health and Norflex Livestock Intelligence . They offer an extensive livestock product portfolio focused on animal health management , all backed up by exceptional service . We thank both of these companies for their ongoing support of the Head Shippet podcast .
