There are some blokes in the cattle game who never chased headlines, but quietly helped shape the industry through hard work, resilience and decades on the ground. Geoffrey Beere is one of them.
An Export Life, traces a remarkable career that began with North Meat in Darwin before a transfer to the Katherine Abattoir in 1969. From there, Beere’s working life would span the Northern Territory, remote Australia and livestock markets across Asia and the Middle East. He joined the local buffalo industry, later worked with Austrex loading cattle at Darwin Wharf in 1974, managed the iconic Mudginberri Abattoir between 1975 and 1977, and then joined the Animal Industry Branch as a stock and meat inspector in 1979.
That alone would make for a solid career, but Geoffrey Beere was only getting started.
During the BTEC years, he served as a stock inspector based in the Victoria River District, part of one of the most significant animal health campaigns in Australian history. He was later seconded to Sarawak from 1981 to 1984 to help develop a live cattle import project, showcasing the practical expertise northern Australians were exporting long before the term became fashionable.
Mudginberri remains one of the standout chapters. Beere’s recollections cover the operation of the abattoir and its unique payment system, while also touching on the wider Mudginberri dispute, a landmark industrial relations battle that helped trigger the National Farmers’ Federation Fighting Fund.
From there, Geoffrey Beere moved into full-time consultancy to the livestock export industry, providing after-sales service, facility upgrades and processing advice across Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Pakistan, Egypt and Turkey. From improving unloading ramps and restraining boxes to feedlot design and wet market upgrades, his work helped modernise systems that became vital to Australia’s cattle export trade.
The slide show is packed with photos and stories that capture a different era. Buffalo catching rigs in the Top End. Rough roads and rougher facilities overseas. Cattle arriving in new markets for the first time. Improvised solutions in places where progress relied more on common sense than bureaucracy.
For the RFTTEJOBS.com audience, Geoffrey Beere’s story is a reminder that agricultural careers can go far beyond the farm gate. Skills learned in yards, abattoirs and stations can take a person around the world.
It is also a reminder that much of Australia’s livestock success was built by practical men and women whose names rarely made the papers, but whose efforts opened markets, solved problems and backed producers for decades.
Geoffrey Beere was one of those people.
DOWNLOAD FULL DOCUMENT - AN EXPORT LIFE
VIDEO: See also Sarawak Stocktake for more on exporting life
Author's Note: I was introduced to Geoffrey many years ago in Darwin by Nick Bradley at an NTCA Conference, not only is Geoffrey constantly engaged with everyone who walks past - as everyone know's him in the industry, he also volunteers at the Prostate Cancer desk, with his 96yo colleague Don Lockley, at the conference urging blokes to get tested... always a warm welcoming and with a smile, and an eager ear. (Simon Cheatham; April 2026)
NTCA 2025
