Judged for being a vegetarian on a cattle station, this backpacker says it’s changed her view

One month ago, German vegetarian backpacker Lucia Lang was instructing puppy yoga and surfing the waves at Bondi Beach.

Now she’s living out of a swag and mustering cattle on the vast red dirt of a cattle station in remote North West Queensland. 

Her reluctant trek to the outback was to complete her 88 days of farm work to extend her working holiday visa, but she said immersing herself in the world of rural Australia had been eye-opening.

“I’m a vegetarian, which is not the best … I get judged, but it’s alright,” she laughed.

“To see how my boss and the other people work with the animals and how they treat them … I’ve learned a lot.

“It’s not violence and I was really impressed about that.”

Basking in a fiery orange and pastel pink outback sunset after a long day of rounding up livestock brought her a sense of admiration for the cattle industry.

“In the beginning, it was kind of hard for me to hurt the cattle, like branding and cutting their ears, but I definitely get why we do it, and they have a good life,” Ms Lang said.

“The longer I’m here I realise I’m never going to have this experience again in my life and it’s really unique.

“I’ve learned a lot about myself, and I’ve definitely got stronger … not only in my hands.”

Show and tell

Shelley Curr, owner of Yelvertoft Station, an hour’s drive north of where Ms Lang works near Mount Isa, said spending time on properties as well as agricultural events, like Beef Australia, helped to combat “misconceptions” surrounding animal welfare.

“You can see fat, happy cattle and how they’re handled, and those sorts of things do take away a few misconceptions,” Ms Curr said.

“Unless you actually physically go and work on a cattle property, you really have no idea of what goes on.”

But Ms Curr said the onus was on producers to demonstrate how their cattle stations operated.

“We need to sometimes go to the city to see what [they] want, meat-wise or production-wise and restaurant quality, and as an industry we do make an effort to see the other side of the story … but maybe we should be a little more open,” she said.

“There are a lot of farm stays now that are taking school groups for their school holidays and that’s really good … I think it’s really smart.

“It’s probably great for those people to experience our world.”

Opening the gates

Chair of Cattle Australia and producer Garry Edwards said industry participation in royal shows in major urban areas offered a great opportunity to “humanise” rural stories to the broader community.

He said education could unlock new dialogues, from school rooms to working positively with supermarkets to show consumers how their food is produced.

“We can’t expect that other people are going to do this for us,” he said.

“We have to be prepared to go on and engage with people in forums that we normally avoid.

“I encourage farmers to open up their farms … it’s a great way to re-establish those connections.”

Mr Edwards said those in the cattle industry who do not uphold animal welfare standards can damage the industry’s reputation.

“They should be prepared to suffer the penalties that are applicable,” he said.

“If you show and give people the opportunity to come and see what it is that we do and how we do it, more often than not they fall in love with it the same as everybody else has.”