Rob Backus Built Redgate and Myola and Earned ALFA Life Membership

Who is Rob Backus?

Rob Backus is an Australian feedlot builder and manager whose career spanned frontier forage trials, two major purpose-built lots and the feedlot division of a large pastoral company. The Beef Central story on his life membership says he received Life Membership of the Australian Lot Feeders' Association at its BeefEx conference on the Gold Coast, in front of a dinner audience of almost 400. He was the eighth life member since the association began in 1970.

Forage finishing in the East Kimberley

Backus's record starts in 1969, when he pioneered forage-based cattle finishing projects in the East Kimberley region of northern Western Australia. Forage finishing means fattening cattle on planted or managed feed rather than in a grain-fed pen.

The article gives no detail on the outcomes of those projects, so this profile does not claim any.

Redgate and the 1975 beef slump

Swifts recruited Backus in 1973 to build and manage a feedlot at Redgate in the South Burnett district of Queensland. It opened in October 1974, grew to 5,000 head and closed during the 1975 Beef Slump.

The closure belongs in the record. The lot was built in a boom and shut when prices collapsed, a pattern the cattle industry has repeated, and a manager who goes through it learns about debt and timing.

Building Myola at Croppa Creek

In 1992 Backus planned, built and managed the 20,000-head Myola feedlot at Croppa Creek, New South Wales. At ALFA's 1994 BeefEx, Myola was named National Feedlot of the Year, two years after the 1992 start.

ALFA defines its industry on its association profile page as constructed facilities where cattle are confined and fed a prepared ration, and says its members represent more than 90 percent of cattle on feed.

AA Co and the feedlot division

In 1996 Backus became general manager of AA Co's feedlot division, based at the Goonoo feedlot in Central Queensland. In 2001 he was closely involved in AA Co's purchase of the Aronui feedlot near Dalby.

He retired from hands-on feedlot work in May 2004 after a heart transplant. That detail appears in the published story and is repeated here only because it explains the end of his working career.

Honors and where to learn more

Life membership is ALFA's top recognition. Another recipient, Jim Cudmore of Kerwee Lot Feeders, was named the tenth life member, as a Farm Online report says, which gives a sense of how few people hold it.

For wider reading on feedlots and finishing, see the farm.FM ranching section and a farm.FM story about feedlot finishing.