As the nation’s largest privately owned feedlot operator, Toowoomba-based Mort & Co is under no illusion that innovation and sustainable agricultural practices hold the key to long-term prosperity.

It was ever thus, at least since executive chairman Charlie Mort re-established the business in 1997 – more than 150 years after it was founded by a distant relative.

Mr Mort’s first innovation was to buy cattle for investors, in addition to processing livestock from graziers.

“The cattle would come into the feedlots in droughts and then the abattoirs would buy them, so there were big numbers of grain-fed cattle for a couple of months of the year and then there’d be nothing when it rained,” he said.

“But what I was able to offer the processors was investors, allowing us to buy cattle as well as have graziers’ cattle on feed.

“It meant we could supply the abattoirs with cattle 52 weeks of the year.”

Mort & Co has evolved into a sprawling, vertically integrated beef operation.

At the core is a trio of Queensland feedlots – Grassdale, the nation’s largest, as well as Pinegrove at Millmerran and Yarranbrook near Inglewood – boasting a combined annual turnover of 250,000 head of cattle, or a point-in-time capacity of 100,000 head.

The feedlots are complemented by other businesses in the group’s supply chain, including Mort & Co Farms, Mort & Co Transport, Mort & Co Meat, Mort & Co Fertilisers, Mort & Co Stockfeeds, and Mort & Co Service Centre.

Current annual revenue of “up to $700m” is creeping towards a medium-term aspirational target of $1bn, depending on cattle prices which “seem to move around a lot these days”, according to Mr Mort.

“Internationally demand is pretty strong, but there’s a lot of cattle in the Australian market at the moment which we think is likely to shorten up over the next number of months,” he said.

Like all sectors of the economy, Mort & Co and its peers face the challenge of minimising their impact on the climate and delivering on consumer expectations of a sustainable food industry, hopefully without diluting profitability.

Under the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory accounting framework, the red meat industry contributes about 10% of Australia’s total greenhouse gas emissions.

About two-thirds of those emissions are derived from cattle, with methane from the natural digestion process the main contributor.

Unsurprisingly, Mort & Co has been trialling feed supplements to reduce methane production in the cattle’s largest stomach component, the rumen.

“With methane emissions, our hope is that we can actually turn that into a positive – we’re trialling products that can actually give us productivity gains,” Mr Mort said.

“It’s a lot easier to manage those inputs and measure the results in the feedlot, but obviously on broadacre grazing country it’s much more difficult.

“So we’re trying to develop initiatives to help our suppliers – the graziers – as they bring their product through, which would improve efficiency all the way to the feedlot.”

Any solution, however, would have to avoid passing on any cost increase to hard-pressed consumers.

Productivity gains therefore have to be part of the overall package.

Elsewhere, and consistent with Mort & Co’s strategy to build adjacent businesses, the company started commercial production of organic, granulated fertiliser products at its Grassdale feedlot in April 2021.

It’s a prime example of the circular economy where cattle consume grain and produce manure – traditionally seen as a waste product but now repurposed into granular fertiliser primarily used on farms.

Mort & Co claims that among the product’s features are an improved water-holding capacity to enhance water infiltration and condition the soil.

There is also improved plant nutrient utilisation when used in combination with synthetic fertiliser.

One of the advantages of Mort & Co’s ever-expanding scale is that the group generates an almost inexhaustible supply of manure – 80,000 tonnes a year from the Grassdale site alone.

Mort & Co Fertilisers supplies domestic markets and is working with international customers on export opportunities, with access to containerised shipping at the Port of Brisbane for export.

The product is also being trialled further north in the Queensland sugar cane industry, where synthetic fertiliser run-off is recognised as one of the big threats to the Great Barrier Reef.

An additional source of reduced emissions for Mort & Co has been improved logistics for its fleet of 45 trucks at its regional depot located in Pittsworth, Queensland.

In addition to transporting cattle, liquid feed and commodities for the group, Mort & Co Transport also provides specialist services to the broader agricultural community.

One of Mr Mort’s pet projects has been to address inefficiency in the transport network.

“We’re looking more and more at backloads for our fertiliser going out, so we’re bringing grain back into the feedlot,” he said.

“Generally speaking, that will reduce transport – at this stage, if a truck arrives at Grassdale or one of our feedlots with grain on it, they leave empty, but they’re starting to leave now with fertiliser.”

Last, but not least, is the Predictor Plus grazing management software developed in-house by Mort & Co.

Put simply, the program predicts the financial performance and methane production of cattle through examination of dung at the company’s laboratory.

The system integrates genetics, pasture nutrition and the topography of the paddock to produce a report for the grazier which provides recommendations on supplement programs.

Mort & Co is also developing a supplement block to help meet these supplementation requirements as well as provide a distribution method for methaneinhibiting feed supplements to grazing systems.

That way, the cattle arrive at the feedlot at an optimal weight to maximise the grazier’s return.

“We are in the business of innovation and creating a sustainable industry that will service not only this region but Australian agriculture for many years to come,” Mr Mort said.