Powered by Geora: Leather Cattle Company

Meet: Leather Cattle Company

Melinee and Rob Leather own and operate Leather Cattle Company, a successful grass-fed beef operation on their family property, Barfield Station, in Central Queensland.

Leather Cattle Company are a leading example when it comes to sustainable production in the beef industry, developing on-farm biosecurity and regenerative practices across their operation where they breed and finish cattle for the organic EU and grasslands markets.

In an exciting collaboration with the National Australia Bank (NAB), Leather Cattle Company have been using Geora to track and verify the impact of their NAB agri-green loan.

What is the NAB Agri Green loan?

The NAB Agri Green Loan aims to support Australian farmers in the implementation of green and sustainable on-farm practices and technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change. Geora provides an additional layer of transparency to the Agri Green Loan book by creating trustworthy records of impact that the NAB customer, in this case Leather Cattle Company, can share with interested stakeholders in the beef supply chain.

Geora provides clear and verified reporting on the NAB Agri Green Loan to prove the impact of this Green finance and show the credentials in the quality and impact of Leather Cattle Company's product.

Live tracking of green initiatives through the Geora platform

Claims of nature and climate impact are under increasing scrutiny, yet producers are offered very few tools to combat these integrity challenges.

With Geora, Melinee is able to take the data the NAB team needs from her on-farm systems, visualise that information on her Geora dashboards, and share directly with her banking manager. This gives her a streamlined solution to report on and verify the impact of the Green Loan saving time and money in data entry and Loan Covenant reporting.

"Increasingly the beef industry is being asked by customers and consumers to provide evidence around environmental and animal welfare credentials. I see platforms such as Geora giving producers the tool to visibly track and report on their outcomes in a transparent manner" - Melinee Leather

Increased data integrity while saving time on tedious reporting

Data entry is riddled with challenges, not only is it tedious but very easy to make mistakes particularly when out on-farm under environmental and time pressures. Geora platform makes it easy to integrate Melinee's existing systems, BlackBox and CiboLabs, directly to the Geora platform.

This allows the data to come directly into the Geora platform and means that when the NAB agribusiness manager inspects the green initiative assets they’re tracking, they can easily see the source (or more specifically, the evidence) for each piece of information submitted.

We also received feedback from Melinee that using Geora saves her a significant amount time when it comes to reporting for two reasons:

1. The integration capabilities reduce the need to manually input data (which is very time consuming)
2. It’s removed the hassle of trying to track & share everything NAB need using complex spreadsheets and long email threads that bounce back and forth

Enhanced transparency and accountability

Connecting the Leather Cattle Company’s software systems directly with the NAB agribusiness manager not only provides enhanced transparency and accountability when it comes to reporting on their green initiatives and on-farm practices, but it also facilitates effortless monitoring of loan covenants and ensures alignment throughout the loan term.

Building their brand & reputation in the market

‍Leather Cattle Company is able to use the same information they report on to NAB to build their brand in market, share data with trading parties, and report against industry sustainability frameworks such as the Australian Beef Sustainability Framework.

"Platforms such as Geora can be the one stop shop for reporting and tracking changes across all of the metrics that the beef industry uses when communicating sustainability outcomes across the supply chain including banks and global markets" - Melinee Leather

Geora remains dedicated to supporting agribusinesses like Leather Cattle Company in their pursuit of sustainability. We aim to provide the digital tools producers need to remain compliant and verified in the ever-changing impact reporting landscape.

The Australian Beef Sustainability Framework

Melinee Leather is a member of the sustainability steering committee for the ABSF, and in June 2023 the ABSF released its annual update, committing the beef industry to the following five goals:

The Australian Beef Sustainability Framework (ABSF) sets out the key indicators of performance on sustainability for the Australian beef industry and uses evidence-based metrics and empowers the industry to empower the industry to continually improve and demonstrate its values to customers, investors and stakeholders.

The Australian Beef Sustainability Framework is also used to inform industry investment and promote the longevity and prosperity of the beef industry.

With this in mind, we worked with Melinee to create a simple tool for all Aussie Beef Farmers to:

1. Benchmark their sustainability metrics and demonstrate year-on-year progress towards the five ABSF goals
2. Share their sustainability progress with trading partners
3. Access inset credit trading and green loans through the platform

If you’d like to explore joining the platform, reach out via hello@geora.io and one of our team members will be in touch.

For a limited time, Geora is offering Australian farmers a 90% discount on any 12 month business subscription*

*Terms and conditions apply.