A big few years for Thrive Agri Services
The past few years have certainly been significant for Thrive.
As many of you know, we've been busy delivering the Towards 90 (T90) project over recent years. In July 2024, our contract with Meat & Livestock Australia (MLA) concluded, and despite not being renewed, we wrapped up the existing groups and delivered the final report in November. T90 was an aspirational project, ambitious in scale and scope.
But how did Thrive reach the point of being involved in a national program of this scale? To answer that, it’s worth stepping back a little.
Thrives beginnings
Thrive started in late 2018, after Kirsty and I stepped out of our corporate and industry roles. Prior to launching Thrive, my career was spent largely in research and development roles with Victoria's Department of Primary Industries (DPI), primarily focused on sheep production systems. While consulting and advisory work had always been part of the long-term plan, it probably arrived earlier than originally anticipated.
During those early DPI years, I benefited greatly from mentors who encouraged creativity, curiosity, and innovation. The excitement of measuring animal performance with regular lamb weigh-ins, crunching data and testing new ideas felt genuinely rewarding. It hardly felt like work.
That early research period provided a strong foundation in pastures, agronomy, nutrition, and feedlot systems. At the same time, collaboration with leading prime lamb producers on-farm helped shift my thinking from individual animal groups to whole-farm economics and reproductive efficiency.
The interest in farm systems and reproduction led to postgraduate study. Initially as a Masters degree, which evolved into a PhD. This phase provided a deep dive into how animal production, nutrition, pasture management, and farm economics interact. It solidified a structured, systems-based understanding of farming, highlighting both the complexity and interconnectedness of farm decisions.
Reproductive Efficiency: An Ongoing Challenge
After returning from PhD studies, the focus turned more sharply toward reproductive efficiency, particularly lamb survival. Working in an industry development role this included projects aimed at improving producer adoption of best-practice lamb survival strategies. At the same time, involvement as DPI’s representative on the Western Victorian Southern Australian Livestock Research Council (SALRC) reinforced an ongoing industry challenge. Despite decades of research and clear evidence-based recommendations, significant improvements in lamb survival rates remained elusive.
This wasn't a new revelation. It echoed sentiments from my final-year university project, which highlighted a sobering statistic. "At current lamb survival rates and sheep numbers, 10 million lambs die annually." More than two decades later, this figure remains frequently cited in industry proposals and publications.
Over time, it became increasingly clear that addressing reproductive efficiency required more than isolated management interventions during lambing. While programs like Lifetime Ewe Management (LTEM) demonstrated the power of targeted nutrition, reproductive outcomes depend on multiple, interrelated factors. Effective solutions required structured management across the full reproductive cycle, combining management, nutrition and genetics to optimise whole-farm profitability. This approach is a major reason why we initiated the T90 project and still remains at the core of Thrives mission today.
What does this mean for you?
If you’re already working with us, we hope this reflection reinforces why we're here, what we've learned along the way, and why we're committed to what we're doing.
If we haven’t connected recently or perhaps at all, we’d genuinely value the opportunity to reconnect. The challenges you face likely aren't new to us, but every farm is unique in its systems, pressures, and priorities, and that's exactly where we help best.
Our experiences have taught us many things, but perhaps most clearly, that better farm performance doesn’t arise from a single workshop, course, or a moment in time. Instead, it comes from building reliable, repeatable systems, and having clarity and structured support to consistently put them into practice.
We’ve seen first hand what's possible when good practices are backed by good structure. If you're ready to explore how that could look on your farm, we're ready to have that conversation.
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