LambEx 2014 at the Adelaide Showgrounds attracted over 25 local Angaston Ag Bureau and BIGG members, family members, young local producers and agricultural professionals during 9-11th July 2014.
Bruce Hancock and Joe Keynes, members of the Lambex Committee were blown away by the attendance of over 900 delegates from SA, the breathe of Australia and even Overseas from New Zealand, The America’s and Europe. They said, “it was an honor to be part of a great team that developed and delivered what was acknowledged by many attendees as the best forum or conference in a long time, if not ever in SA! Value for money was often iterated, along with what was a great showcase for South Australia, with the great speakers and excellent exhibitions.”
On Wednesday, over 100 delegates participated in two bus tours to the Barossa region and hosted by the SA Mt Lofty and SA Murray Darling Basin NRM Boards, while others attended the Sheep CRC Concept to Impact Conference. The PIRSA Welcome Function in the evening got LambEx off to great start with a great tag team effort by the new Minister of Regions and Sam Kekovich, the Australian Lambassador and showcased many local and provincal foods.
Thursday was full-on with specific breakfast sessions for the early-birds, a full forum program of speakers and panels, and over 70 very informative and interactive exhibition booths and livestock displays during the breaks– some developed and manned by local Barossa producers. The Lambex Young Guns was judged and although Barossa candidates were unsuccessful, they were very competitive and richer for the experience, as is the Barossa for them choosing to showcase our region. There was also a State Mystery Box Challenge Competition for the AMIC Apprentice Butchers.
Throughout LambEx the Royal and Agricultural Society catering staff did both themselves and SA proud by doing a fantastic job in quickly feeding the huge delegation with continual high quality lamb dishes.
The AWI Grandslamb Dinner was a taste sensation and during the evening, the winners of Australia Best Lamb Competition was announced with over 60 other entries from across the nation – “Thornby Lamb” from the McGorman family, Sanderston. This was a huge win for this family business and just reward for their tireless effort and investment along the whole supply chain and industry best practice.
The LambEx 2014 program covered the power of consumer perceptions and advocacy, international lamb opportunity, on-farm and processing technology, livestock predators, livestock farming systems and margins and the all important “people magic’ of communication and succession planning – key critical success factors of any business!