NEW England Angus breeders Erica and Halliday and husband Stu feature prominently in an award-winning United States-made food documentary which aired recently on the PBS channel in the US.

Celebrity chef Walter Staib hosts the popular Tastes of History series featuring food production and customs from across the world on publicly-funded PBS, America’s equivalent of the ABC.

The Australian episode, called Grilling Down Under, won a gold Telly award in the US media industry. The US is easily Australia’s largest volume export beef market this year, accounting for more than 155,000 tonnes of chilled and frozen beef for the first six months of 2024

During his visit to the Hallidays’ Ben Nevis property near Walcha in northern NSW, chef Staib noted that Australia’s unique climate meant cattle could be kept on pasture all year round.

“Animal welfare is probably the most important thing that we do,” Stu Halliday says during the segment.

A veterinarian by trade, he tells the camera he now “practised what he once preached as a vet”.

The Hallidays stressed the emphasis on the use of regenerative techniques to a sustainable future for the planet, and cover crops to help the animals, delivering various types of nutrients at the same time.

The whole process of rotational grazing meant cattle were ‘just a lot healthier’, Erica said.

Methane emissions also came into the conversation.

“Cows have been emitting methane since the dawn of time,” Erica says. “But the net effect of cows in well-managed mobs grazing grass is actually carbon neutral, and even net sequesters of carbon.”

Just to look at the methane component in isolation was not really capturing the big picture, she said.

“Grass is the most abundant plant-form on earth, but humans can’t eat it, Ruminants are the only animals that can grab grass and turn it into protein for themselves.

“One of the biggest things we have learned is that there’s a whole world below the ground, and its full of microbes. Those microbes live on carbon. There’s carbon in the atmosphere that’s doing bad things, but once sequestered into the soil through plants, it actually does wonderful things under the surface, staying stable for thousands of years.”

“To get grass to do that, we actually have to chop it off so that is grows more thickly. You can either get a machine (like a mower) to do it, or you can use a natural machine – a cow. And the nutrients that come from the soil to the grass are then transferred into that beef, which is the most nutrient dense form of protein in the world.”

“We do not need chemicals in our food – we need our food as nature intended,” Erica says.

Wandering around the paddocks at Ben Nevis, chef Staib said the whole setting ‘blew his mind.’

“The future is here,” he said, surrounded bv Ben Nevis Angus breeders in the paddock

Producers of the popular US television show, A Taste of History, partnered with MLA to film two episodes featuring Australian beef and lamb.

The stars of the episodes, Erica Halliday (beef) and Tim Leeming (lamb), are great advocates for Australian red meat production and passionate about telling our story.

MLA executive chef Sam Burke also makes a guest appearance, showcasing the versatility and ease of spectacular beef recipes.

Click here to view the award winning episode