‘Incredible service to industry’: WAFarmers recognises Peter Trefort, Elizabeth Jackson and Jack Nixon

A trio of WA agriculture’s most well-known and respected members whose work has spanned from the Kimberley to the Great Southern have been bestowed WAFarmers’ most prestigious award for their decades of service to industry.

Peter Trefort, Jack Nixon and Elizabeth Jackson were acknowledged for their passion and dedication to the agriculture industry when they were awarded Industry Service Awards at the WAFarmers conference in Perth on Friday, March 3.

With interests including livestock, biosecurity, marketing and agricultural supply chains, each has contributed a range of different things to WA’s multibillion dollar agriculture industry.

Peter Trefort

Known as a sportsman, farmer, butcher, abattoir operator, researcher, and Meat and Livestock Australia director, Mr Trefort is arguably best-known for his work as co-founder of Hillside Meat Processors, Narrogin, which started as an on-farm butcher shop.

Mr Trefort is also well known for his work helping lamb producers develop a high-quality lamb meat product and developing the Q Lamb label, which helped WA farmers realise lamb meat was a high-quality food and more than a wool by-product.

The success was in part to the pellet feeding regime developed in conjunction with Dr John Milton, which formed the basis of the consistent qualities found in QLamb.

The eating quality work, undertaken at Murdoch University by Dr David Pethic, led Australia into a supply of high quality lamb year round with the accompanying science.

The distribution of lamb through Andrews Meats in Sydney’s domestic market soon led to expansion into the export market.

Hillside was always available to trial new technology and accommodation of industry trials and was awarded national lamb processor of the year in 2000.

The extra lamb required took many WA prime lamb producers to a new level of expertise.

Mr Trefort was elected to the MLA Board in 2003 and was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in science from Murdoch University in 2006 for his contribution to the WA meat industry.

He continued his strong and widely respected advocacy for the sheep meat industry on the MLA board until his retirement in 2015.

As Agriculture College Manager of Corporate Services he worked tirelessly to ensure colleges were expanded in an era when the government was intent on winding back agricultural education.

Elizabeth Jackson

An Associate Professor in Supply Chain Management and Logistics at Curtin University, Ms Jackson has been a strong advocate and representative for WAFarmers and the WA livestock industry since 2018 through her role as on the board of Sheep Producers Australia.

WAFarmers president John Hassell said she had been a valuable member of the WAFarmers Livestock Council, and had dedicated her time, energy and expertise to the organisation as a conduit for information on the agricultural supply chain.

“Ms Jackson has generously devoted considerable time, energy and expertise to WAFarmers,” he said.

“She was a popular speaker at a number of industry forums organised by the organisation throughout the state to provide farmers with information about the threat of Foot and Mouth Disease to the livestock industry.

“While not a farmer, Liz has made, and hopefully will continue to make, a valuable contribution to WAFarmers, the Livestock Council and the broader agricultural industry.”

In recent years, she has organised a number of farm tours for students to better agriculture.

Jack Nixon

WAFarmers had to do some wrangling to attract the Wheatbelt raised Mr Nixon, asking him to give a short talk at the organisation’s conference dinner as a way to attract him to the event.

Mr Nixon, the eldest son of John and Marion Nixon, was brought up on a wheat and sheep farm in the Dalwallinu and Kalannie area.

In the mid 1960s, John bought Beverley Springs Station, about 300km north of Derby along the Gibb River Road.

When he was six, Jack moved to the station to start home schooling and later boarded at Christ Church Grammar in Perth.

After finishing Year 12, he worked with relatives in the Wheatbelt before he met and married his now-wife Sonia Taylor.

Her father was one of the last cattle drovers to take part in the final Canning Stock Route drive from Halls Creek to Meekatharra.

As a man of many trades, Jack moved back to the Kimberley and worked on the Walkabout with Malcolm Douglas TV series.

In the mid 1980s, Jack beat 90 other applicants for a job as the Department of Agriculture Stock Inspector in Derby.

In that role, he helped manage and develop infield management programs Brucellosis and Tuberculosis Eradication Campaign across the Kimberley cattle herd — starting a long association with the then Department of Agriculture and the cattle industry.

While many believed it was an impossible task to eradicate TB from the Kimberley, Jack helped achieve it.

At the end of the BTEC eradication program in 2000, Jack and Sonia moved their family to Gelorup, near Bunbury .

He has since worked at the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development as the industry liaison officer for WA’s National Livestock Identification System program.