The ABC understands the Federal Government will introduce new penalties for company directors who knew about animal abuses on live animal export ships, but didn't take action

In the event the live export trade did close, head of the Australian Meat Industry Council says Australian abattoirs could cope, new markets would be found or expanded and farmers shouldn't worry about their returns because there is so much price transparency in the system these days

For 20 years scientists, with funding from the Grains Research and Development Corporation, have been collecting genetic material to find the wheat genes that would grow big, shady leaves and branched roots and out-compete the weeds

Australia's maritime industry is being advised to switch to readily avilable LNG otherwise it will struggle to meet strict new targets for reducing harmful emissions

The Maritime Industry Australia Ltd, the peak representative body for Australia's shipping industry, says the industry needs to look further afield and find alternative fuels that can considerably reduce both sulphur and greenhouse emissions

Bridging the city-urban divide with social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. Many in northern Australia believe this is a vital tool to tell their stories on the land

The Federal Opposition says the time is up and all sheep exports must end

The Prime Minister has slammed Labor's promise to end live sheep exports

Minister for Agriculture David Littleproud said "The McCarthy Review into the Middle Eastern summer sheep trade is due in two weeks. With the science just two weeks away, Labor has rushed to a knee-jerk ban, punishing farmers who have done no wrong,"

The RSPCA and Animals Australia have announced they will each contribute $500,000 to a farmer support fund to phase out live sheep exports

Australia is producing too many pigs. Despite increased demand for pork, Australian farmers are growing more pigs than can be processed. Australian Pork's Andrew Spencer expects farmers will be forced to exit the industry, as it encounters a new threshold of pain

President of the WAPPA said the smaller pork producers in Western Australia will struggle to stay in business under the current price pressures

The senate committee parliamentary inquiry into GM resumed in Perth with the Pastoralists and Graziers Association's Gary McGill questioning the need for the inquiry and WAFarmers grains section president Duncan Young saying most problems are easily resolved farmer to farmer

A small olive grove in Nannup, about 70km east of Margaret River, has won the gold medal at the New York International Olive Oil Competition

Western Australia's most northern commercial olive grove has taken out the award for best oil in Australia, at the Olive Japan awards

Chair of the Australian Livestock Exporters Council says the industry's supply chain is only as strong as its weakest link, and the exporters were the weakest link during the 2017 voyage to the Middle East when 2, 400 sheep died on board the Awassi Express

WA based livestock exporter Wellard has called on the federal government to remove a clause that allows "substandard ships" to continue to carry livestock

The chairman of Western Australia's rural financial counselling service says uncertainty over the future of the live export trade has prompted a number of calls to his organisation from WA livestock producers who are worried about the financial viablity of their operations

The agriculture minister Alannah MacTiernan has announced $24 million of new money for grains research

Median farmland values grew by seven per cent last year, roughly the same growth the ASX200 achieved

A proposed salt-mine in the Pilbara has been put up for public comment for environmental approval

A processor on the Sunshine Coast has made its first batches of small freeze dried cubes of cheddar that will last for years without preservatives or refrigeration

The farm lobby group the NFF has a vision for agricultural to grow from a $59 billion industry to a $100 billion dollar industry by 2030 and the Talking 2030 workshops start in WA this week

The new state of regional telecommunications review committee will investigate the standard of service around regional Australia

Emanuel Exports is sending its first ship-load of sheep to the middle east since the shocking footage of dying sheep was shown on 60 minutes three weeks ago

The Queensland Government is set to introduce controversial new tree clearing laws into state parliament

The future of vegetable production in WA could be costly, unless growers stop mono-cropping

The beef sector's contribution to Farm Management Deposits has sky rocketed in the last three years

The competition regulator the ACCC believes a mandatory code of conduct is the best step forward to negotiate contracts between dairy processors and farmers

Matt Dalgleish, a market analyst from Mercado said current live export numbers are consistent with the five year average

The Australian Export Grains Innovation Centre is training experienced people in the industry, such as grain traders, about some of the basics when it comes to wheat quality, from the mill to baking the bread

Patchy rain in many parts of the wheatbelt hasn't stopped seeding and now farmers wait for the rain

Farmers in the south east of NSW are battling through what they say is one of their worst droughts on record

Western Australia's Community Resource Centres have just received an email from the State Government with news their budgets have been slashed by 40 per cent, from $13 million to $8 million

Sheep farmers could get double the price for mutton if it's dry aged, rather than wet-aged. That's the view of some meat experts, who have been studying the potential demand for dry aged sheep meat in Australia

The Australian Livestock Exporters Council says customers in the Middle East are worried about the threat of a mid year pause in the trade and are questioning future investments in new vessels and infrastructure projects worth hundreds of millions of dollars

Cattle producers at the Pastoralists and Graziers Association's northern conference express concern for their cattle trade and vow to work together and with the sheep industry to secure the future of the industry

A South West forestry group has warned a decline in harvestable pine could see the demise of WA's softwood industry

The federal government has committed to co-funding a plan to desalinate water for farmers in the south-west, as part more than two-billion dollars in spending promises for road and rail in WA

South West Nationals MP Terry Redman says a $140 million federal government commitment to reduce salinity in Wellington Dam, doesn't kill off hopes for another major WA water project, a 15 gigalitre dam built in the Southern Forests region

Plant biologists from the University of Western Australia have vindicated Roman farmers, who realised their wheat crops were more susceptible to flood damage when temperatures warm up

Western Australia's wool production is expected to be down 7.3 per cent this season, which is a significant drop, in fact the biggest drop around the country, although it is off quite a good performance the previous year

Michelle Scott Tucker says, after 12 years of researching her biography of Elizabeth Macarthur, she's come to realise what an integral role women play in agriculture and how little it's talked about

Pastoralists around Australia would be better off not killing wild dogs, in order to protect their livestock. That's the message from a recent paper released by CSIRO's Wildlife Research

The first wheat of the season is already out of the ground at Bill Crabtree's farm north east of Morawa

WA soil scientists have found water repellent soils that have been buried or inverted have a much lower repellence in the buried top soil, in some cases up to 70 per cent reduction in the repellence of the buried top soil

A consortium in Tasmania is riding the wave of global demand in sushi, with plans to pioneer the farming of native sea urchins

The state agriculture minister Alannah MacTiernan says major changes are on the way for the live animal export industry and any resistance to those changes is a waste of time. The minister said industry needed to get on the front foot and and start planning for these changes and develop a model that has credibility and is acceptable to the wider community

The minister also said the heads of the two WA farm lobby groups have seen the footage her department has which highlights her concerns about animal welfare standards on board the MV Maysora, which recently left Fremantle

Dandaragan sheep farmer Peter Negus says the middle of the year is his peak wether selling season and he said the suggestion of closing that market is alarming

The uncertainty facing the live animal export trade is already have an impact at the local saleyards. At the Muchea cattle market the extra numbers, the dry conditions and the question mark now hanging over the live export market had a negative effect on the cattle market values, and prices eased from 10 to 50 cents a kilogram. At the sheep market it was a similar story, with sheep and lambs to that market back ten to fifteen dollars a head

A new, hardy fig variety, called the Cyprian Red is bearing fruit for Phil and Kay Gravett, who plan to put hundreds more trees in at their orchard near Manjimup

The idea of going into business with your neighbours as a farm co-operative has proven itself a popular venture in some farm communities

April 25 has long been the traditional start date for winter plantings around Australia. But decades, maybe even centuries on, does the date written down in folklore still apply?

A piece of spectacular silo art has made its debut to the world just in time for ANZAC day. Two female servicewomen, a World War 1 nurse and an army medic adorn the silos, standing tall in the town of Devenish, west of Wangaratta in north east Victoria

The farm lobby group the PGA wants the running commentary on the live animal export trade to stop and all players to back off a little bit until the McCarthy review into the trade is complete

The mood and prices at the Muchea sheep market down as a result of the uncertainty in the live animal export trade

The Awassi Express, the ship at the centre of the Channel Nine story on live exports could be given the green light to set sail again by the end of the week

Federal MP Rick Wilson's Narrogin office has been graffitied with anti live export messages for a second time in three days

The nickel price hit almost seven dollars US a pound last week, its highest level in over three years

WA hemp growers have taken a bold step forward and formed Australia's first official hemp co-operative

A vintage machinery collection, containing some of the rarest tractors in the world, has been sold at an auction in WA's south-west

Food scare feature; How a food scare changes the buying habits of shoppers and what producers should be doing to quickly recover from a food scare in their industry

The Western Rock Lobster Council is hatching a bold plan to claw back an annual million dollars worth of fishing levies and use the money to fund targeted lobster research through a WA based Australasian Insitute for Spiny Lobster Research

WAFarmers president Tony York said NSW Liberal MP Sussan Ley gave him a good hearing but still plans to put forward a private member's Bill to end live sheep exports to the Middle East