• Charles Sturt’s Feedlot of the Future aims to showcase best practice in three core disciplines – animal welfare, sustainability and animal nutrition and productivity

Charles Sturt University’s Feedlot of the Future facility will showcase best practice in animal health and welfare by creating real-world facilities to solve challenges facing the feeding industry.

The feedlot is an initiative of the University’s Red Meat Innovation Centre (RMIC) and AgriPark and is a major redevelopment of the existing feedlot operations at Charles Sturt in Wagga Wagga.

RMIC Manager Dr Bec Barnewall recently showcased the centre’s latest initiatives at the University’s site at the Henty Machinery Field Days, including red meat tasting and the Dairy Beef project.

She said the upgraded fully automated, undercover feedlot facility will showcase best practice in three core disciplines – animal welfare, sustainability and animal nutrition and productivity.

“The feedlot will create a real-world facility to test, validate, scale and demonstrate transferable precision technology for the feedlot industry,” she said.

“It also has the potential to unlock revolutionary technologies that will benefit Australian producers and work towards the Australian red meat industry target to become carbon neutral by 2030.”

The facility will feature covered feedlot research, automated feeding and weighing, carbon emissions sensors, environmental water sensors, end-to-end traceability and a digital twin simulation model of the physical facility in operation.

Dr Barnewall said the facility will provide benefits for students, researchers and industry partners and advance Charles Sturt’s commitment to innovation in the development of resilient systems for food animal production.

“Students will be taught and have the opportunity to run projects on a commercial digital feedlot,” she said.

“Researchers, with industry partners, can develop, test and validate the latest feedlot and sustainability technologies or research.”

“It will also allow for industry participation through demonstration and innovation showcases and changes to regulatory and market access principles that can be tested and validated.”

The result will come from a more sustainable welfare-friendly production system and ensure market access globally.