Australia: Advertising mogul Harold Mitchell backs WA Government plan to diversify rangelands | Land Portal
Language of the news reported: 
English

By: Richard Hudson
Date: March 2nd 2016
Source: ABC Australia

Advertising mogul Harold Mitchell is fully supporting the Western Australian Government's introduction of multi-use leases for rangelands making up about 87 per cent of the state.

Mr Mitchell said the new legislation would allow him to grow high protein fodder crops like leucaena on Yougawalla, the east Kimberley cattle property he part owns.

"In our particular case, cattle that grow to 300 kilograms in two years for the Indonesian market will add another third to that weight," he said.

Mr Mitchell thinks Australian producers need to be clever with value adding so they were not over-reliant on one market.

"We had that happen when the cattle sales were dreadfully stopped to Indonesia and people around us went broke," he said.

"So we need certainty, diversity and to be able to control our own destiny in an exploding market, which we have never seen before."

The WA Government is creating new legislation it hopes will promote diversification and conservation.

But Mr Mitchell said after a lifetime running Australia's largest advertising company, he would not be encouraging his station managers to suddenly start radically diversifying on Yougawalla.

He said while he has owned Yougawalla, he has had some very good cattle people working with him.

"I can tell you the best thing I ever did was stick to what I knew, and the only time I ever got into trouble is when I got outside the advertising industry," he said.

"So no we won't be too clever about it; we'll just be smart."

Mr Mitchell said he could see ways pastoralists could benefit from the WA Government's support of culture in its push to develop the rangelands.

He and his business partners have gradually expanded Yougawalla by buying neighbouring properties and forming "clever" business relationships with four nearby Indigenous landholder groups.

"The arrangement was that over 10 years we would invest our money, providing extra waters and fencing," he said.

"We would use their labour and at the end, it will all be theirs."

Mr Mitchell said this arrangement would give his business more certainty and flexibility to run more cattle.

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Photo source:  Georgie Sharp via Flickr/Creative Commons (CC By-NC-ND 2.0). Photo: © Georgie Sharp

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