Western Australia Country Hour

Backlash is growing over a plan to allow more of a so called 'forever chemical' onto berries grown in Australia.

WA could be on track to match or break last season's record grain crop of just over 27 million tonnes.

WA farmer and vice president of the NFF John Hassell says he's concerned about the possible outcomes of a US investigation into lamb imports, one of Australia's key export markets.

Farmers who've held onto their sheep and cattle through some tough seasons are being rewarded with high prices for their livestock in saleyards across the country.

Poultry producers and wildlife organisations are on high alert after confirmation the H5N1 bird flu has now reached native Australian bird populations.

Wool Producers Australia says the aim to launch the Future Flock initiative at LambEx in Adelaide this week, was far too ambitious. 

A hydro harvester, that stores water taken out of the atmosphere, will be put to the test at a native seedling nursery at Beverley in WA's wheatbelt next year.

Plum Grove Logistics has entered into a three year agreement with Mid West Ports to export 600, 000 tonnes of grain from the Geraldton Port.

Speculation is mounting over Alcoa's future mining intentions and the implications for WA's native jarrah forests, following its $8 billion deal to buy South 32's bauxite and alumina operations.

Farmers in rural WA say they have struggled with power outages and frequent maintenance issues after being moved off the grid and on to standalone power systems by Western Power.

Authorities have detected a suspected case of the H5 bird flu in metropolitan Perth.

Bee industry representatives from across the nation held an emergency roundtable this week to discuss the critical next steps in managing varroa mite.

The WA Government's container for change scheme comes into effect today. 

Seafood menus across Australia are set for a major shake-up as new national labelling laws come into force.

Australia's outback is transforming during one of its wettest years on record. 

Another suspected positive case of the H-5 bird flu has been detected in Western Australia.

For most couples, marriage comes with its challenges. Add in the demands of farming and running a business, and those pressures only grow.

A Tasmanian poultry farm has decided to lockdown its operations, following confirmation of two cases of the H5N1 strain of avian flu in seabirds found along Western Australia's south coast last week.

Australia's chemical regulator has applied new restrictions to the use of the controversial herbicide paraquat, which has previously been linked to Parkinson's disease.

State agriculture minister Jackie Jarvis says Western Australia is still in a surveillance and monitoring phase for the deadly strain of bird flu, not at an outbreak stage.

Some of our truck drivers and the PGA believe a proposed new truck-trailer set up will not fix the problem of truck roll-overs.

A crop and livestock producer in the Great Southern, with a passion for filmmaking, says it's incredible how many farming skills carry across to the set of a movie or television series.

Bravo apples from Western Australia arrived in China over the weekend.

Two small, remote islands off the Kimberley coast are going to be turned into sea and air hubs for offshore oil and gas, marine industries, security, defence and fuel storage.

Mining giant Rio Tinto says it will soon halt its hay production in northern WA, leaving pastoralists scrambling to find an alternative supplier.

Internal documents reveal government officials are privately warning about the risks of a growing reliance on Elon Musk's satellite internet service Starlink. 

The Pastoralist and Graziers Association says agricultural innovation is being stymied in the Kimberley with the state government refusing to release any surface water for farm projects in the region.

Former state Agriculture Minister Alannah MacTiernan is representing Victory Metals who want to establish Australia's largest heavy rare earth clay project in the Mid West.  

The Haggerty family has decided to let robots milk their cows. It means their workers can focus on other aspects of the farming enterprise.

Beef exports to China are expected to ease rapidly as Australia fast approaches this year's quota which will trigger an additional 55 per cent tariff on beef imports.

A flapping drone disguised as a peregrine falcon is giving hope to strawberry growers, who are losing hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of fruit to rainbow lorikeets each year.

Leo Skliros grows mangoes in the Northern Territory and says the wage increase is "another nail in the coffin."

The science and economics research division of the Department of Agriculture, ABARES, is forecasting the value of agricultural production to fall by 5 per cent to $98 billion in 2026-27.

The Northern Territory's biggest bull sale was held in Katherine on Friday, with some buyers travelling from WA's Kimberley to take part.

Rural businesses are worried they will struggle to find workers as the government comes under pressure to cut immigration numbers.

The company behind one of the state's few biofuel refineries has plans to make renewable diesel fuel from canola, straw and wood residue for the WA market.

Western Australia's total wheat area planted is expected to be down 14 per cent on last season.

The main players in the WA scallop industry have turned their attention to the state's south coast, after a marine heatwave, early last year, wiped out scallop populations off the west coast at Shark Bay and the Abrolhos Islands.

Holes in Australia's sovereign capability exposed by Iran war supply chain issues.

The Federal Government has released a discussion paper on proposals to extend Australia's Right to Repair framework for agricultural machinery.

After receiving some very generous donations, the charity group Farmers Across Borders is back on the road and about to deliver some much needed hay to pastoralists across the Gascoyne and Murchison.