There's been a lot packed into this year, so much so that occasionally you have to stop and remind yourself that certain events did definitely occur in 2021, and not before.
For instance, the $160,000 Hereford bull record set in February by Injemira Redford, Injemira, Book Book, the massive Haweskbury and North Coast floods and Cumnock stud, Royalla winning supreme bull at Beef Week, Rockhapmton, with Royalla Ventura.
In the year's first quarter, for the first time, grain-fed beef also exceeded 50 per cent of Australian beef production by volume, and has kept on growing since.
We also saw Barnaby Joyce's return to federal Nationals leadership while Paul Toole took the reins at a state level as we ushered in Dominic Perrottet as Premier, plus wharf strikes, mouse plauges, epic property prices, significant national parks purchases, the NSW Gas Plan rolled out, the Shenhua Watermark mine refused, border closures, cyber attacks and rural labour shortages.
New territory was also reached on the livestock front with the $225,000 bull, Texas Iceman, and the $280,000 Millah Murrah Paratroper, and likewise, the $165,000 Tattykeel White Gold Australian White ram.
There was also the $35,200 world-record-priced Kelpie, called Hoover, and 26 maiden Australian White ewes, scanned in lamb with twins, that made $1210/head.
Sky-rocketing prices for canola, grain and cotton were also a bonus, but the record wet year in many areas dampened the ability for a lot of crops to realise their full potential.
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The past year has also been one of contrast.
The disruption of COVID lockdowns, event cancellations and working from home on one hand, while in parallel, those in the field have been at warp speed, as farmers try and make up for lost time from the extreme drought years of 2018-19.
It has brought new meaning to a "two-speed" economy, where those in the bush have been flat out with strong markets as those in the city have been in a stop-start pattern.
At The Land, the team still managed to get out to a number of key evets through the year.
This week's front page celebrates some of those big issues and events that we covered, in spite of the disruptions.
While 2021 is going to be hard to beat in terms of big headlines, we look forward to a positive year in 2022 and we wish our readers a healthy and prosperous new year.
(NOTE: In the print version of this editorial, published in the December 30 edition of The Land, it said Wirruna Redford. That was an error. It should have said Injemira Redford.)
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