Shoalhaven High Archibull 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.