Where Cattle Australia's new chair David Foote sees beef's threats and opportunities

David Foote, who was this week voted in to head up Cattle Australia, says productivity gains through genetics and the benefits that will flow from improved connectivity also present a wealth of opportunity.

On the challenges front, he sees the threat of exotic animal disease and market access and trade barriers as the big ticket items.

ALSO SEE: Meet the new board of Cattle Australia

Mr Foote, who has decades of experience in everything from breeding cattle to growing them out, lot feeding, processing, exporting and retailing, acknowledges he has taken on a big role being the first chair of the new, restructured grassfed cattle producer peak industry council but says this is 'an industry worth fighting for.'

For more than a decade there had been agitation within the ranks of the grassfed production sector about the need for reform in representation, which had been handled by Cattle Council of Australia for 40-plus years.

Senate inquiries also identified the need for reform to provide more transparency and accountability and a well-funded advocacy body.

A Cattle Australia Implementation Committee started on the job six years ago and efforts were significantly ramped up over the past year. However, it has been fraught with internal dramas, right up until voting for the first board started a month ago when court cases were threatened, and indeed announced, trying to stop it going ahead.

Far from taking the approach that any previous criticisers of Cattle Australia and the reform process had burned their bridges, Mr Foote signaled he wanted unity and involvement of all moving forward.

"This is a new regime and structure," he said.

"The door is open and we will welcome and encourage constructive input.

"I have felt pretty strongly about focused representation from what is Australia's largest agribusiness sector for quite some time - some would say as highlighted in my 2017 Ekka address at the Queensland Rural Press Club."

Here, Mr Foote declared the industry was deeply devoid of united leadership.

He said there were so many peak representative bodies it was 'starting to look like a mountain range' and the bottom line was that a fragmented message fails.

With a complete new board, new democratic election model and many of the senior people from Cattle Council finishing up this week, including the chief executive officer, accusations that the new body may just be a reincarnation of the old don't appear to hold any water.

While finding new staff immediately presents a challenge, the fact Cattle Australia comes with no baggage will likely be a good thing in the long run - presenting, in the eye of the average producer, a genuine fresh start and new era.

Mr Foote issued a plea to 'give the new regime some breathing space to put things in place and get its house in order'.

The million dollar question people are wanting to throw at him is how is CA going to be financially sustainable.

"If it were only a million dollar question that would be ok," he said.

"However, we anticipate that to be truly functional as a national advocate we will require multiple funding sources from membership, industry grants and sponsorships to name a few."

Mr Foote held leadership roles with the Lee family's Australian Country Choice group of companies from 1999 before stepping back in December 2020 to a strategic advisory and board role.

ACC operates Australia's largest vertically integrated beef supply chain, but is probably best known for its processing plant in Brisbane.

Mr Foote also has extensive exporter experience, including with Stanbroke Pastoral Company developing their live cattle program and he also has a plethora of board roles.

Building whole-of-supply chain thinking would ideally be an outcome after a period of time, he said, but the first priority was building producer unity.

His cattle property is in the Queensland Mt Kilcoy district and runs Charolais and Charbray breeders.