ON THE wrong side of the 250mm rainfall line, a dozen station owners are poised for a bountiful season, ANDREW MOLE writes

What better way for an organic meat industry to grow than "organically".

In a land where drought sets the livestock agenda, the upsides are surprising.

And they come with a lot of untapped potential.

Scattered across the north of South Australia, between Lake Eyre and Lake Torrens, are 12 stations running cattle and sheep.

Not only were they out of sight, they were so far off the radar they never really got into the minds of buyers, processors, retailers and consumers, let alone out of them.

So the nine station owners who ran the Dismissed Dozen got together over a barbie or two and cooked up the concept of Outback Lakes SA.

Billa Kalina Station's Colin Greenfield is the first to admit OLSA was lucky to get off the ground.

When it was launched in 2005, some of the participating stations were already in drought, but no one worried too much because up there, someone always is.

"But then things started to go seriously dry, for everyone," Colin said.

"I am sure if we had waited a couple more years this would never have got off the ground.

"Here we are more than six years down the track and we all still have relatively low numbers, but with the season we have just had we are all bouncing back."

OLSA is also putting some bounce in its businesses. Before it was formed some of the stations were already using CattleCare to chase a market premium.

Most of them were monitoring inputs, feed and stock management.

But Colin said for too many it was a lot of extra work without extra reward.

"We were all sick of being price takers, and on top of that there is this real 'station stigma' when we are compared with stock from the inside country."

In South Australia, anything inside Goyder's Line is considered good, outside and you are more than marginal.

Nevertheless they felt the time was right to speed up progress through education. We were able to tap into government funding for workshops focusing on things such as nutrition and low-stress stock handling.

"Individually we were pretty down at home and by sharing with others we realised we weren't the only poor buggers in the world."

However the drought still took its toll, and some of the members had to put the project on the backburner.

But it also uncovered something the group was aware of, but had never consciously pushed.

They are all naturally organic.

And there isn't a bigger buzz word in the food business today.

So while there might not be a local footy club, the goal posts for a branded bush product were suddenly, and voluntarily, moved. "We are looking at working with T&R at Murray Bridge as there is no serious organic buyer in SA and freight costs for us to go anywhere else are too much," Colin said.

"This spring we are aiming for our first special sale, which will either be online with AuctionsPlus or may go to the Dublin Saleyards at Adelaide.

"Our stations are mostly working with British-breed cattle, but African Bos taurus is now being added to the mix to improve our hardiness without compromising the beef quality.

"Up here we are always planning for drought. If there is rain we keep our weaners and yearlings and grow them out. If it doesn't rain we sell.

"That makes it a little tricky to commit to numbers, and has affected getting our brand up and running.

"But so far we have been able to boost the image of station stock ahead of where it was.

"People are now more aware we have a certain standard here."

While the focus has been on beef, Colin said there were Dorpers which would fit into the program, and some stations still ran Merinos, which could fit.

In a good year OLSA would have 15,000-20,000 cattle to draw on - a minnow compared with neighbouring Queensland stations, but a minnow with big ambitions.

"We want every box ticked, and only want our best stock going, because you only get one shot at this."

OLSA member Shane Oldfield, from Clayton Station on the Birdsville Track, runs as classic a station set-up as you can expect.

He can fatten cattle only one year out of five on average, some times worse, rarely better.

His target market is feedlotters, with weaners going off the property at 300kg, but to backgrounders during drought.

This year he hopes to sell 500 weaners, but can do double that, or better, in a good year.

"While we have shifted away from the Poll Herefords, we have stuck with British and Euro breeds.

"We have gone into black and Charolais because they sell better, and have been running black baldies now over red cows and breeding them back to black.

"After October it is pretty tough out here and the job is all about keeping your waters."

With the Clayton Creek, six bores, 50 permanent waters and 350km of pipe on his 2589 square kilometre station, Shane is doing better than most.

But he said water in the region was getting tougher, pointing the finger at BHP and its demands for mining water.

"Our property had a bore into the Great Artesian Basin, which started in 1902, and up until 1985 had only dropped about half an inch," Shane said.

"In the past six years it has fallen 6.5 metres.

"BHP has gone around offering stations good money and good terms to sell them their stations and water rights.

"Only one sold, none of the station families even thought about it."

He is an enthusiastic supporter of OLSA, saying station owners have to do everything they can to keep ahead of the market.

"Progress has arrived in this part of the world in the worst way - prices haven't gone up enough but the cost of everything else that goes into the business has."

The current OLSA members are made up of Andamooka, Billa Kalina, Clayton, Dulkaninna, Farina, Mulgaria, Muloorina, Mundowdna, Purple Downs, Roxby Downs and Stuart Creek.