Peter Hall elected AgForce Cattle president

The Cloncurry grazier, who replaced William Wilson at the 23rd AgForce Cattle Ltd AGM on Tuesday at Mount Isa, said there were many issues facing the industry and it was important to be across all of them.

A key priority for Mr Hall is supporting Cattle Australia in its transition from Cattle Council of Australia.

"We're at the stage of holding a voting process to get a board in place for Cattle Australia. AgForce has been very supportive of that, because to operate at the state level, you need a peak industry council operating effectively at the national level," Mr Hall said.

"You can't make one work well without the other operating effectively, because there's so much that happens in the way of trade implications and other reforms that impact our industry."

Voting closes on December 5 and the Cattle Australia board will be announced at its AGM on December 12.

Another major issue Mr Hall will be across is methane reduction pledges, such as those being discussed at COP27, and the effect they have on the livestock industry.

"As an organisation, we've got to be very cognisant of the fact that we've got to continue to work on that and continue to be across all spectrums in that field to ensure that agriculture doesn't become the soft belly in their reduction process," he said.

"It's an ongoing job and we've got to get a lot better at it. We need to monitor that to make sure things don't go adverse. Agriculture has always been the soft target; it's time we turned that around."

Mr Hall said the labour shortage and its impact on agriculture as it tried to increase production was also at the top of his mind.

"The lack of skilled labour is going to have a real impact in this country. It, more than anything, is probably going to hold us back as we try to go forward."

He said he would also continue working with state and federal agriculture departments in the lumpy skin disease and foot and mouth disease space - on preparedness activities, revising Ausvetplan and supporting the efforts happening in Indonesia with the vaccination programs.

The new cattle head runs a breeder operation across properties in the McKinlay Shire in north west Queensland where he takes cattle through to live export or feedlot weight, and occasionally fattens them.

He's been involved in AgForce since its inception in 1999 and has been on the cattle board for the majority of that time, and has also been involved in CCA for about 17 years.

Mr Hall said it was a great time to be stepping into the role.

"The cattle board has a great group of people involved at the moment. They're very enthusiastic and very willing to get in and get involved in a lot of the industry issues," he said.

"Will was very involved, had a great list of contacts and had a great knowledge of what was going on. He left the cattle board operating in a very efficient manner and it's a pretty easy role to step into at the moment."

Mr Wilson forwent his position to contest the AgForce presidency, which was retained by Georgie Somerset.

With Matt Bennetto exiting the role of AgForce north Queensland regional president, the position was contested by Shane McCarthy and Des Bolton, with Mr McCarthy elected.

The nominated commodity presidents ran uncontested.

In the commodity boards, they also received the correct number of uncontested nominations required to fill the positions, with exception of the cattle board.

In Central Queensland there were four cattle board positions available but five nominations - Mark Davies, David Hill, Tamara Finger, Bronte Lloyd and Adam Coffey.

Mr Davies, Mr Hill, Ms Finger and Ms Lloyd were appointed.

In southern inland Queensland there were two positions available on the cattle board but three nominations - Kenneth Syme, Garth Christiansen, and Tom Nixon.

Mr Syme and Mr Christiansen were appointed.

The full list of AgForce elected representatives can be found here.

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