Suppliers of livestock to OBE Organic take great joy in seeing floodwaters snake their way south along a myriad of ancient river channels, flowing over shallow banks and spreading up to 30 kilometres wide to naturally irrigate millions of hectares of fertile outback floodplains.

This region of Australian is known at the ‘Channel Country’.

The joy of Channel Country producers on this occasion is tinged with sadness from knowing the same floodwaters brought such devastation to graziers further north in Queensland, just a few weeks prior.

But this is the nature of the Channel Country, the vast inland basin that drains a sixth of the Australian continent and flows to Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, Australia’s lowest point at about 15 metres below sea level.

Rain hundreds of kilometres to the north flows south along normally dry creeks and channels.  When there is sufficient rain, the rivers flood and bring life-giving water and nutrients to the Channel Country, as they have been doing for millions of years.

No two floods are the same – this one has arrived just a few weeks after the flooding rains to the north, instead of the four to six weeks it normally takes.

Our farmers have raised livestock in this part of Australia for generations and therefore have a good understanding of how fast the water will travel and how much land it will impact.

With the blessing of advance notice, our organic farmers have been able to move stock out of the way of the floodwaters. They will move the cattle back in a couple of months when the floodwaters recede, leaving outback floodplains bursting with vegetation imparting such a depth of flavour to our grass fed organic beef – part of the natural cycle that makes OBE Organic beef seasoned by nature.

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