Andrew (Cosi) Costello, Adelaide media figure, in 2011, starts Cows for Cambodia as big Asian agricultural charity

Adelaide media dynamo Andrew (Cosi) Costello (at left) saw the way to help Cambodia's rural poor through a cow-bank project that loaned families a pregnant cow, allowed them to keep its calf, and returned the cow to help the Cows for Cambodia venture grow.
Images by Pip Courtney, Landline, ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) television.

Cows for Cambodia, started by Adelaide media dynamo Andrew (Cosi) Costello from 2011, aimed to be one of Asia’s biggest agriculture charity projects.

In 2011, Costello had launched his South Aussie with Cosi television programme from Adelaide, promoting South Australia tourism in 46 countries. That year, he went to Cambodia to visit a friend and realised that the simple ownership of a cow could help the nation’s rural people get out of their poverty trap.

Costello said he “fell in love” with Cambodia and its people: “I returned three months later with my wife and eldest child to show them this amazing country. It was then we decided to purchase a cow and give it away to a random family and that’s how Cows for Cambodia was born.” Costello described the project as essentially a cow bank: “We loan families a pregnant cow. They must look after it and when it has the calf they keep the calf and we take our cow back. It’s more about providing an opportunity to break the poverty cycle rather than a direct handout.”

Costello’s chance meeting with retired Queensland beef producer Wallace Gunthorpe gave him the cattle expertise the charity needed to grow. Gunthorpe arranged the donation and importing of six Australian Brahman cattle — four bulls and two heifers — into Cambodia to improve the charity's herd. This lifted the poor genetics of Cambodian cattle with pregnancy rates rising from 15% to 65% with better management and better protein.

By late 2014, Cows for Cambodia had raised $15,000 and boosted its cow ownership to 22 animals. By the next year, 50 families each had a cow – worth as much as their houses. Costello increased relationships with village chiefs and local police to ensure they looked after the cows and the project that became focussed on one village near Siem Reap and housed most of its cows within a 10 kilometres radius to make management easier. A vaccination programme made its cows the healthiest in the region. The long-term goal for Cows for Cambodia was to have 1,000 cows.