WA Meat Marketing Co-operative’s Producer of the Month is taken out by a trifecta of Esperance producers

Three Esperance prime lamb producers have scored a trifecta by taking out the top three placings in WA Meat Marketing Co-operative’s Producer of the Month awards for April. The Malaysian-based Russell family — trading as JA Russell — placed first with a draft of 323 Prime SAMM cross White Suffolk lambs produced at their ‘Oaks’ property at Esperance and processed at WAMMCO’s Katanning facility on April 7. This winning draft averaged 22.93kg to record an impressive WAMMCO sweet spot of 99.07 per cent. Second place went to Ash Reichstein of Laurina Farms in Esperance for a line of 243 crossbred lambs also processed on April 7 that averaged 21.6kg with a sweet spot of 97.12 per cent. Third place went to Matthias Reck of Falom Pty Ltd in Esperance with 127 Dohne cross lambs with an average weight of 21.31kg and a sweet spot of 96.85 per cent. Nutrien Livestock Esperance manager for Barry Hutcheson and local assistant Jake Hann were responsible for preparing, booking and marketing all three consignments. The winning lambs were processed during a period of turmoil at WAMMCO Katanning when worker absenteeism induced by COVID-19 played havoc with production, creating a serious backlog of unprocessed lambs. The recent announcement of the April Producer of the Month winners also coincided with a visit to JA Russell’s Esperance properties by Malaysia-based director John Russell. He said the family began farming at Esperance as part of a global investment push that started in Malaysia and other Asian countries in the 1880s. Other Australian investments included the Queensland-based Nerada tea plantation business. “We started out in Australia with two separate properties some distance apart then proceeded to buy up the land between,” Mr Russell said. “At one stage the Esperance properties carried around 30,000 ewes and in the 1990s there was a significant investment in Dorper sheep.” Mr Russell said a shift to Prime SAMM and later White Suffolk genetics took place about five years ago and now involved around 4000 ewes. “There are plans to increase the Merino ewe component from 2000 currently to around 6000 ewes,” he said. “The family has not purchased extra land for the past 25 years, but we have continued to reinvest profits in the business to ensure we stay ahead.” Mr Russell said the company’s recent appointment of new Esperance manager Mitch Greaves and his partner Demi, was already indicating exciting new directions for the family business. “He sees a bright future for Australian farming with special opportunities for commodities such as Australian lamb,” Mr Russell said. “People in some countries will not eat pork and other meat products, but all of them eat lamb. “There may be new opportunities for our lamb in countries like Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia.” JA Russell farm manager Mitch Greaves said the decline in Australia’s sheep and lamb industry appeared to have stabilised and those producers that remained in the business were focused on improving productivity to capture high global prices for lamb. “There has been an almost perfect start to the season with 150mm already recorded and hopefully the balance of our annual quota of 525mm yet to come,” he said. “Whilst a starting price for canola of around $1000/tonne and with lamb still around $8/kg, isn’t a bad start.” Second place getters in the WAMMCO April award were Ash Reichstein and his wife Megan McDowall of Laurina Farms. Mr Reichstein said they were one of the few remaining sheep and lamb producers in the area about 40km north-east of Esperance. The property was taken up by Ash’s father David Reichstein, who was contracted by Esperance Land Development to seed 10,000 hectares of pastures annually during the development phase of the 1960s. “We have never looked back,” Ash said. A keen student of Australian Sheep Breeding Values, Mr Reichstein and his family spent a decade using Centre Plus bloodlines via AI before moving to buy Centre Plus rams from Willie Harvey in Kojonup and later from local breeder Dave Vandenburge at Wattle Dale stud. Third-place winner Matthias Reck said most of his Dohne crossbred lambs had been sold over the hooks to WAMMCO during the past six years initially through local Nutrien Livestock Esperance agent Neil Brindley and over the past two years by successors Barry Hutcheson and local representative Jake Hann. The Reck family emigrated from Germany to take up their West Esperance property in the mid-1980s. After taking the reins of the business in 1995, Mr Reck moved from Merinos to Dohnes, sourcing genetics firstly from Geoff Beeck at Katanning and more recently from Kintail Park in Jerramungup. He said his mother Maria played an integral role in the business.