SAFE1

It is a great place for the backyard inventor to come out from the shed to share their innovations with other like minded people.Exhibitors come from as far north as Queensland and northern New South Wales.With many exciting new products and practical demonstrations on site, visitors have the opportunity to ask questions and meet the individuals behind groundbreaking products. There is also entertainment, animal nurseries for the kids, fashion parades and a diverse lecture series.Lectures and seminars are on each day and feature more than 75 sessions from experts in their field. The sessions cover alternative farming, building techniques, information from the Department of Primary Industries and advice on support during, and recovery from, the drought.The Seymour Alternative Farming Expo is staged one hour north of Melbourne via the Hume Freeway at Kings Park, Seymour, and is held from 9am to 5pm each day.Exhibitors should register now by contacting Colin Stray on (03) 5799 1211, or to apply online or seek more information, visit the website www.seymour-expo.com

FODDER ON TAP

When Seymour electrician Peter Bailey beeps the horn of his station wagon, a pod of Black Baldy calves comes running up to the paddock gate. Peter pushes a barrow of green fodder biscuits through the gates and throws them bottom-side-up onto the ground.
Within seconds the calves are ripping the biscuits apart and hungrily devouring the nutritious feed.
"Each biscuit weighs 7kg to 8kg, costs 70c to produce and has about the same nutritional value as a bale of lucerne hay," Peter said.
"A standard small bale of lucerne now costs about $15, but during the drought it was nudging $21-22 a bale and in some areas $25 or more." Peter said up to 36 biscuits a day, with the nutritional equivalent of 36 small bales of hay, are produced in a continuous six-day cycle in an insulated container-like machine he will be exhibiting on site 93 at the Seymour Alternative Farming Expo from Friday to Sunday, February 15-17.
The fodder system was developed in Queensland, and there are now more than 120 units on farms or horse studs throughout Australia.
Peter's business, Fodder Solutions Seymour, has the franchise for Victoria, Southern NSW, Tasmania and South Australia.
"It's a great way to drought-proof a property," Peter said.
"This machine can produce a quarter-tonne of green feed every day, without chemicals or fertiliser. The only other thing you have to provide for cows that do not have access to a pick out of the paddock is some dry roughage such as straw or any low grade fibre."
Peter said the machine required a livestock-drinkable quality water supply of 600 litres a day, from a dam, bore, channel or house supply.
"The run-off of about 150 litres a day cannot be recycled through the machine, but it can be used to water stock or to irrigate a vegie patch. Each tray is seeded with a prescription mix to suit horses, cattle, sheep or any other livestock on the property.
The mix might consist of about a kilo of barley, wheat or triticale, laced with maize, sunflower, lupin or any other desired seeds.
The unit has an automatic electronic atmosphere control system, with internal sprinkler and drainage systems and comes in three sizes - 60kg, 120kg and 240kg a day.
This delivers rapid growth - it's 24 hours of spring time in there, with optimum growing conditions captured into a container."
Peter said to keep stock alive in hard times, they needed to be fed about 2.5 per cent of their body weight a day.
He said farmers with larger properties could consider using the system to cut down the cost of required machinery and the hazards of producing and storing fodder.
Fire from spontaneous combustion is always a risk with newly stacked hay but storing grain and operating the machine has none of the problems of making and storing large quantities of hay.
The Fodder Solutions system would free up, for extra livestock, land that would otherwise be tied up with feed production. Up to quarter-tonne-a-day machines are portable, and can be taken from farm to farm as required, but systems with up to 3-tonnes-a-day output can be installed on farm. The machine would also let some small property owners consider developing a business opportunity where they finished off scrawny calves on a biscuit a day plus the required dry matter.
Peter said some drought affected irrigation farmers in the Murray-Darling Basin have received a $20,000 government grant to buy their machines. For more details, phone Peter on 0438 131 848 or visit the website www.foddersolutions.org

CUT TO THE COUNTRY COOKOFF

TWO of the most popular attractions at Seymour Expo are on the move this year. Bob Dewar's Butcher Shop and chef Trevor Burvill's Country Cookoff are moving from a site behind the grandstand to sites where visitors will be able to enjoy tree shade while they watch.
The glassed in and air-conditioned Butcher Shop will be on site 131, with the Country Cookoff nearby on site 70 near the Lecture Theatre marquee.
Bob, a contract butcher with Safeway for the past 12 years, previously owned butcher shops in Wangaratta for 24 years.
He will be demonstrating how to prepare varieties of meat.
Trevor has 35 years experience as a chef and has travelled the world, catering wherever he was. He said highlights of his culinary career were cooking for a prince in Thailand, for Governor-General John Kerr just before he sacked Prime Minister Gough Whitlam, and for the present Governor-General Michael Jeffery who was then Trevor's boss. Trevor now teaches VET hospitality courses to Year 11-12 students at Broadford Secondary College and also finds time to run the Pampurred Pets dog and cat boarding business at Seymour.
Each year the Butcher Shop has a theme at Seymour Expo, with sheep the chosen meat last year and goats the previous year.
"We try to do something different each year," Bob said.
"We demonstrate how to prepare bush tucker - possum, crocodile, mutton birds, camel, kangaroo, emu and ostrich meat.
I do a lot of work with the Doone (sheep breed) association and will feature this as well as giving demonstations on how to prepare poultry and bone out rabbits for a terrine.
I show you how to cut up these game meats and then Trevor takes it from there and prepares it and we give tastings."
Trevor said the joint sessions averaged about 40 minutes and tended to leapfrog each other throughout the day.
They promote a barbecue unit and use all the functions on it, including cooking damper. Trevor said mushrooms will be used "with and against" the meats this year. "Last year we wrote out a program for each day for the site broadcaster, spelling out a timetable for the game meats and popular sausage making sessions," Trevor said.
"We ran out of recipes." Each session will include a short question and answer segment, where visitors can quiz Bob and Trevor on their presentations. Trevor said one of his apprentices year ago, Phil Zambetto, the popular "travelling chef," would be back again this year. "We think he's in Queensland," Trevor said.
"Each year, as soon as expo is over, he heads off somewhere else."

SIGN OF THE TIMES

When farmers start to order fertiliser spreading machinery, it shows they have confidence better times are coming. That's the conclusion the Seymour Rural Equipment staff have come to after more than 40 years of supplying machinery to the agricultural industry.
"We can sense a downturn or a recovery on the way by using farmers' orders for fertiliser equipment as a barometer," managing director Colin Stray said. "At the moment we're as busy as and it's a positive sign we are emerging from the worst of the drought in many areas." The company will be exhibiting examples of its range of fertiliser spreaders, conveyors and bulk handling equipment at the Seymour Alternative Farming Expo from February 15-17.
It manufactures a range of mild steel or longer-life stainless steel spreaders in 2 tonne to 20 tonne capacities, with most of them at the larger end of the scale.
"We started a run of fertiliser spreaders about 30 years ago, but now about 50 per cent of what goes out the gates is organic mulch handling products as farmers move away from their previous heavy reliance on chemical fertilisers," Mr Stray said.
"We are finding ourselves increasingly involved in the manufacture of machines to handle organic materials - mulches, composts, woodshavings and sawdust, etc - in fact any materials that seem to be difficult to handle."
The company also takes on contract engineering work and has been producing sprayer booms and strawberry runner harvesters.
"Seymour Rural has got 40-plus years of agricultural engineering experience and has produced a huge variety of product over that time. We now have a unique ability to marry all those skills to produce what I term agricultural based engineering.
We take the high-tech whiz-bangery away and incorporate the basic principles that come through.
We have a small multi-skilled staff which is on top of any job that comes through the door, from in-house concept and design to in-house production, if possible using local labour." Seymour Rural's products will be displayed on site 232 at Seymour Expo. For more details, phone (03) 5792 1100 or fax (03) 5792 4219.