International Leucaena Conference and Field Tour a success

International Leucaena Conference and Field Tour (ILC2018) successfully completed with support of QAAFI

With the participation of 120 delegates from 12 countries, a very successful conference and field tour (ILC2018) was completed 29 October to 3 November 2018. The field tour highlighted successful leucaena – cattle operations in southern inland Queensland, and the main conference was held in the Sir Llew Edwards Building on the St Lucia Campus of The University of Queensland.

The conference brought together researchers, consultants, students and producers who shared their knowledge and experiences in leucaena. There were many highlights. One of starkest was the contrast between the sustainable and profitable fattening of cattle by the most successful Australian graziers (often >1000 ha leucaena) compared with similarly sustainable and profitable cattle fattening by large numbers of smallholders in eastern Indonesia, but on a vastly smaller scale (1-2 ha leucaena per farmer).

Researchers Assoc. Prof. Max Shelton and Dr Nahuel Pachas from the School of Agriculture and Food Sciences led the organization of the conference that highlighted the research done over 3 decades on this multipurpose tree.

We are indebted to the support given by QAAFI and Dr Luis Prada e Silva for both the field tour and the main conference.