Queensland Country Hour ABC Podcasts

When you buy beef, how much of the price you pay per kilo will actually reach the farmer who bred the animal it came from? It's not an easy question to answer, and as a quirk of statistics adds millions of uncounted cattle to the national herd size, who is making the money is about a lot more than supply and demand. 

Climate scientists have dug into an Antarctic ice core and found climate change is increasing the risk of significant fire seasons in the future meanwhile in Western Australia momentum is gaining to increase "right-way" fire practices as a fire mitigation strategy.

Fake honey is becoming more common overseas and Queensland Beekeepers Association says cheaper imports are undercutting Australian apiarists. 

It would be easy to think there's only one kind of rain for a farmer - good. But there is such a thing as spoiling rain, and it can make a big difference to the animals they're raising. 

With little warning, and no consultation, the federal government has ended Harvest Trail Services, a free program that for 26 years has helped safely connect working holiday makers with farmers, providing background checks on both parties. Now it's gone. 

Meeting emissions reduction targets requires new sources of clean energy, but ambitious state-government pumped hydro projects on undeveloped land has some rural Queenslanders asking 'at what cost?" While the merit of renewables against the cost to the environment gets weighed up, there's another hydro project that could instead see an aging mine site get a new lease on life.