Kara Knudsen Target 100 Interview

Kara Knudsen Target 100 Interview

Cattle and sheep farmers transformed Sydney's Martin Place into a cattle and sheep farm complete with live animals, native bushland and farmers beamed in via a giant screen to talk directly to the people of Sydney.

Members of the public had the unique opportunity to speak directly to cattle and sheep farmers without leaving the city. The giant screen projected them into Aussie farms using virtual technology and by doing so will help bridge the gap between urban and country Australia.

As shown in a recent research survey*, more than half (58%) of urban dwellers are interested to know about the process undertaken to produce the beef and lamb they consume. The Target 100 Virtual Farm presented an opportunity for open discussion with Australian farmers leading the charge in sustainable farming practices.

Popular journalist, blogger, qualified health coach and Target 100 ambassador, Sarah Wilson was on hand at the Target 100 Virtual Farm, sharing tips on why beef and lamb are an important part of a healthy and sustainable diet.

'I'm keen to encourage people to gain a better understanding of where their beef and lamb comes from. My eating philosophy is one that encourages a sugar-free diet that's high in protein, so beef and lamb are often on the menu. The Target 100 Virtual Farm will give us the chance to ask the farmers all we want to know about the practices that go into farming the beef and lamb we love to eat", said Sarah.

Target 100 is an initiative of Australia's cattle and sheep producers to advance sustainable practices and ensure a sustainable food supply for generations to come.

Interview with Kara Knudsen

Question: Are you a sheep or cattle farmer?

Kara Knudsen: We're in the central Queensland area in the Burnett region and we farm beef cattle which are Santa Gertrudis breed, a red cattle. We have a breeding herd and we have lots of little calves running around at the moment. We're a family run enterprise, my husband and I have two young boys (Zack is 3 and Tom is 7 years old) who help us on the farm and are involved in what is happening around the place.


Question: Can you talk more in depth about the role your farm plays as part of cattle farming?

Kara Knudsen: We fatten some of our cattle, which are transported on a truck, to Brisbane. We are about breeding a really good article so that the product that you get on the plate is what it should be and that comes back to a whole host of things including nutrition and early on with the right genetics and my focus is on the right genetics.


Question: What are you doing to ensure your farming practices are sustainable?

Kara Knudsen: We do a lot of grazing land management which is about ground cover and making sure the soil is healthy and ensuring water quality in our beautiful river that flows through our property. The water quality is very important to us so we have most of it fenced off to stock however we still pump out of it and use some water for stocking but the cattle do not have access to it. The other day we saw a Kingfisher breed, that we hadn't seen previously, in the river and we really think that is the sort of thing that is starting to come back because we provide a quality place for them that is not interrupted by cattle. The cattle is alongside the river but as it is protected we have seen these types of species pop up and that proves the river has a healthy environment.

We have a monitoring system for our watering system over the internet and most of our water is pumped with solar power; we spend time checking that both those systems are absolutely right.

Our belief about being sustainable is finding the balance between production, economical and sustainability because we will be there for a long time. I am a fourth generation and my husband is a fifth generation food producer. We hope that if our kids want to do it, that they will be doing it on the same property that we have and we care about that side of things to ensure that we are there for a long time, not a short time.


Question: What do you do on a typical December day?

Kara Knudsen: My son is currently in grade one and I get him off to school which is a 47 kilometre trip to the bus stop and then I turn around and come home. Our day changes all the time but at the moment our focus is on our breeding, as it is breeding season which includes inseminating a lot of our cows and we finished most of that, this week. There is usually cattle work and when that's not on we have a variety of maintenance jobs that includes keeping water to the cattle which is priority number one. We have to prioritise our work days and number one is feeding the cattle, at the moment the feed is grass and if we were in a drought situation we'd be putting supplement out and water.

Most of mine and my husband's day is managing 3-4 employees on each property and we make sure they have their jobs to do and we spend time looking on the computer at the weather bureau and predicting what the likelihood of a rain event is or isn't and then we make decisions from there. Management decisions need to be made before they get carried out and we have a property in the North of Queensland which is very open country and we spend a lot of time talking to them about what they're doing.

I have to head off and pick my son up from school and then we spend the afternoon on our animal chores such as feeding orphan calves which has come about because of a wild dog issue that has maimed a lot of calves and split them up from their mothers; we made the decision to feed them ourselves which is normally not the case but we decided it was the best option to ensure they survive.

I spend a lot of time on the computer with electronics and technology these days and now we can scan every beef using a barcode system and we know the last time that came to the yards and what injection it had and what pregnancy status it was. This system means we know a lot including its nutritional status and age. Technology has made the job a lot easier in some ways but it has also made it challenging because not all of us are IT specialists.


Question: Can you talk about family life, on the farm?

Kara Knudsen: We're not isolated like some people but we are 120 kilometres from Chinchilla and 86 kilometres from our nearest town and post office. We have gravel roads and it is quite an effort to get the groceries and Christmas presents but on the other hand we have a strong community with mostly other beef producers around us.

We have a family meal with our employees each night and I ensure there is always a meal ready and we all share in that role with whoever is at our place which is usually about 7 or 8 people for dinner, each night. Meals are a really good part of our lifestyle as we get to know the people we work with as they normally live on the property with us and we like to have an evening meal together and discuss the day's events and have a laugh. Some days things don't go the way they're supposed to go. As we all live together we know what issues we are having in day-to-day life and you get very close to your employees but we like that part of it.


Question: What are some of the misconceptions associated with farming?
Kara Knudsen: I know that when I talk to people they often say 'I remember when McLeod's Daughters was on" and they will mention 'I couldn't stand being a farmer because of all the drama" and that is because they honestly think that all the drama, seen in a show, occurs on our farms such as a windmill fails then something else happens and then something else… It's not really like that, we do battle the elements and there is fire, droughts or floods but these days we get a lot of warning and have the skills available to us.

Also there is always the iconic image in people's minds or imagination that beef farming is a lot of mustering on a horse and galloping through the bush which is not what we do all day, I'd love to ride my horse every day and play with cows and carves as that would be my ultimate job description but the reality is that very little of that gets done because the cattle spend a lot of time in the paddock eating grass. Most of our time is made up maintaining waters, fences and using the computer to ensure our business is running and often under difficult circumstances such as our phone isn't working because there is a flat battery from the radio telephone or we have to go to town with the solar pump. There are a lot of jobs and there is a misconception that we sit on the veranda and watch the grass grow..

Another misconception is that it takes 50,000 litres of water to create one kilogram of beef and as a farmer I knew that wasn't true and we don't have that amount of water on our property. I did a bit of research and looked up how much water we do actually use and we are doing more research but the real figure is closer to 140-500 litres per kilogram and that is from processing to the consumers plate.

Last year there was a lot of talk surrounding live export in Indonesia and every farmer was upset about what happened but the reality is that there was a lot of abattoirs up there that were doing a really good job and we didn't get to see that. We should be doing something about the ones that aren't but we should also celebrate the Indonesian abattoirs that are trying to do the right thing.

In regards to cattle farming there is a lot of questions surrounding is it a cow or a bull (is it male or female) as kids are very curious about it and need to understand knowledge by being exposed to it. Research has shown that 60% of school children thought that cotton grew on an animal and yoghurt was from a tree (or something like that) and as farmers we know we need to communicate what we are doing so consumers and children know the correct information. It's important that we put the information out there so it is accessible. We have a great product in Australia and we are doing great things in farming but we are not great at marketing ourselves so recently we've picked up on social media to communicate what we're doing.


Question: Do you work seven days a week?

Kara Knudsen: Sometimes, we try very hard to only work five days a week but the cattle take first priority and if the water is out on a Saturday then we work Saturday, that's just the way it is. At the moment we have calves to feed and they don't only get fed from Monday to Friday, they get fed daily and we roster on so we all get a go over the weekend and we all get some time off. We do try, very hard, to not have things happening on the weekend if we can avoid it. There are different things that do happen and you have to deal with them and if that's on the weekend then you've got to go and do it!