Thursday 27 September 2012

Feeding and Clothing our community

We are now at the stage where we have to work out some population statistics for our local area. We are going to use the Australian Bureau of Statistics as our source of information as we feel that it will be a reliable source. The Shoalhaven is a huge area made up of many smaller sized settlements and the main towns of Nowra, Bomaderry and Ulladulla. In 2012 our local population is 98,076 people and each year that number continues to grow.



So now for some calculations..............



Using the information provided in the Archibull Program Manual on page 24 we calculated the kilograms consumed per person per day for each of the commodity groups by dividing the Sydney totals by the population for Sydney which is 4 600 000 people. We then used the value per person and multiplied it by our local population of 98 076 people. We also calculated how much produce or animals that equated to.



We also realised that there were commodity groups such as fish and shellfish and synthetic fabrics that were also consumed by our community but we don't have any statistics for these groups so we might try and find out what we can.

There is also the question of how much food do we waste? As a country we waste around 4 million tonnes of food a year which is a terrible amount especially when 1.2 million Australians do not have access to a safe and nutritious food supply!

What it takes to feed and clothe the Shoalhaven community in one day

Commodity group
Kilograms consumed per day in Sydney
Kilograms per person per day
Kilograms for Shoalhaven population
Produce/animals required
Produce/animals required per person
Animals needed
Shoalhaven
Pork
303,726 kg
0.0474571875 kg
4654.4 Kg
10,847 pigs

0.00169484375
166.2 pigs
Horticulture
2,090,795 kg
0.3266867188 kg
32040.1 Kg
8,664,032 fruit & vegetables

1.353755
132770.8 fruit &veges
Poultry
1,295,562 kg
0.2024315625 kg
19853.7 Kg
1,423,832 hens

0.22247375
21819.3 hens
Meat and Livestock
577,205 kg
0.09018828125 kg
8845.3 Kg
9014 beasts

0.0014084375
138.1 beasts
Dairy
1,817,315 kg
0.2839554688 kg
27849.2 Kg
390,146 dairy cows

0.0609603125
5978.7 dairy cows
Grains
693,151 kg
0.1083048438 kg
10622.1 kg
31543 loaves of bread

0.0049
483.4
loaves
Bees (honey)
12603kg
0.002739782kg
268.7
882,191,781 bees

137.8424658
13519037.7
bees
Rice
163,836 kilograms
0.025599375 kg
2510.7
8,191,780,822 grains of rice

1279.965753
125533921.2 grains of rice
Cotton
1,854 bales = 420,858 kilograms
0.0657590625 kg
6449.4
30,000 hectares of land

0.0046875

459.7 ha

And.........

we have come up with a clever way of representing that on our cow....


Each of the food groups and the amounts required for the Shoalhaven's daily consumption


The team putting the numbers on



Speaking of Sweetie Meaty Pie................... our last day of term was filled with lots of creativity as we began painting after weeks of planning. Check out the pictures and videos below........

Sweetie Meaty Pie comes to life as Shoalhaven High Archibull team creates artwork



We are representing the Shoalhaven region on one side of our cow - you can see the coastline and Shoalhaven River and the farming land of the Shoalhaven floodplain





Sweetie has an arrow on her head and the word INNOVATION across her horns to represent how Agriculture is moving forwards

constructing our farmer




Tuesday 18 September 2012

Meeting our Young Farming Champion Stephanie Fowler


Our Archibull Team with Stephanie Fowler at the Ag farm last week



We met the delightful Stephanie Fowler who is our Young Farming Champion for our Archibull project last week.

 Stephanie is a meat and livestock scientist who is currently researching for her PhD in meat production. She works very closely with the Beef Industry in Australia.



Young Australian Farmer; Stephanie Fowler at Shoalhaven High School's farm.




Stephanie taught us a lot about the Australian beef industry. She encouraged us to join the beef industry. Steph also told us all the kinds of things you can do and achieve in the beef industry.
Steph explained to us sustainable techniques used within the beef industry such as feed lots. She also told us about a new technology she is testing called the Raman Probe. The Raman Probe is a laser used to measure many different aspects of meat, such as the fat content and protein. The Raman probe is so sensitive it even picked up on the cosmic radiation of the last Solar Flare.
Steph has been working in the beef industry for at least six years. In this time she has travelled Australia, doing many different jobs all related to the industry and she is still learning. Some of the jobs she had along the way were: a patty stacker, Jillaroo, Riding Instructor, University lecturer and so much more.
She explained the different aspects of meat that consumers look for when buying beef. Consumers look for the marbling of fat through the meat, colour of the product and the muscle.
Feedlots are one of the techniques used to feed the cows. They use the feedlots to feed cows when grass is unavailable and to give fat a white colour.
She told us about the different types of breeds and what they come under, tropical or temperate. Temperate breeds marble better than tropical breeds, as they eat more. Some temperate breeds are Square Meaters and Murray Grey and Angus. Some breeds that are tropical are Brahman and Santa Gerturdis.
She also gave our school Square Meater cows, Nulla and Creamy, a fat score. Our score for Nulla was 3 and Creamy’s was 4. Nulla has a low score because she recently gave birth to the young calf named Finch.
Our time with Stephanie was educational and fun. WE HOPE she gets her doctorate in beef science. We would like to thank her for sharing her knowledge and expertise with us.

Learning about meat quality with Steph Fowler.
Steph explains what marbling is




The team interview Steph

Interviewing Steph

Working on Sweetie Meaty Pie

Deborah and Marjorie



Nulla, Creamy and Finch


Deborah feeding the young chicks at the farm

We have baby chickens at the farm.