Director Interviews - Steven Bolt

Name and Position: Steven, Co-founding Director of The Livestock Collective.?

How would you explain yourself in 5 five words? A passionate, mixed farmer, with a love for livestock.?

What does your day job look like? Outside of The Livestock Collective, I run a mixed farming enterprise, 50% merino sheep and 50% mixed cropping, across 3400 hectares in Corrigin, Western Australia. Most of my day-to-day is spent managing and looking after the livestock, with the cropping side of the business taking priority during key times of the year like seeding, spraying, and harvest.?

But it is never as straightforward as it sounds, today, for example, I have been in town helping set up for our local show which is on tomorrow. I think it is important to support the local community and help out where I can. After that, I headed out to one of my clients who I sell rams to. I was classing his 1.5 year old breeding stock for the up and coming mating season.?

What is the best part of your job? Meeting people.?The different networks of people you meet and the relationships you from across different parts of work is the best part.?

I started at home on the farm shearing sheep, then moved into breeding sheep, before taking on more industry focused roles. It means I have been able to create relationships with people up and down the supply chain. Many of these are around the sheep industry which is a core passion of mine.

Why did you want to form TLC? I hadn’t been very vocal about the industry before The Livestock Collective. At the time I was watching people from the agricultural industry starting to speak up and voice their opinions but I didn’t think it was constructive in developing trust across animal production and in particular live export.

So I looked into what I could do and attended a group that looked at bringing together all the players and industry bodies to develop some uniform messaging on the matter. At the same time, Holly (co-founding Director of The Livestock Collective) had gathered a group of people working under The Sheep Collective, and someone put me in touch with her.?

Holly asked me to write a piece for the Farm Weekly in support of The Sheep Collective, after we realised our values strongly aligned, she asked me to formally come on board. It was great because we were all working towards a common goal in trying to create a successful outcome for the industry.?

It is really important to me that the sheep industry in Western Australia has live export, and I think it is equally important to demonstrate this to the public. To show people why we should be trusted and that live export should be continued.?

What do you hope to achieve with TLC? I hope to give a voice to the producers and those in the supply chain. To the people that work in the industry day in and out. I want to give them a voice and a platform to talk positively about the industry and share their stories because I think it is important for the Australian economy.?

We need to showcase the industry at the grassroots level, by giving them the confidence and skills to talk about what they do.?

It is really rewarding to see the stories that people in the industry share and it also gives people who aren’t involved in agriculture a connection to it because I feel as though we are starting to see a disconnect. As an industry, we need to find ways to better connect and provide information to the public so people can continue to trust what we do in all areas of agriculture.?

What has been your greatest achievement at TLC to date? The Livestock Leaders program we have created.?

I feel a great sense of achievement when I look at how many people we have had complete the training and the positive feedback we have received. The skill and confidence we are able to give people to talk about their part of the supply chain. People are now in leadership roles, having a positive impact. We have been able to assist them in developing the skills they need to lead the industry. The more people who can complete the program, the stronger I think agriculture will be.

What do you think is the biggest misconception about the Australian agricultural industry? It's hard, considering how immersed I am, it is difficult to see how other people view it.?

I think in general, any misconception people are having is due to a lack of knowledge. The agricultural industry hasn't been good at communicating information in a way that people can grab hold of it and easily understand it, but that’s slowly changing.?

My experience at the Perth Royal Show really shows this, I always try to display my sheep there each year and it provides a great opportunity to have one on one conversations with people outside of the industry. Everyone I speak to is always blown away, although it might only be a small percentage of the population, it feels like a big impact. Every person walks away with new information and a new found trust in agriculture.