Australian beef farmers may not have enough cows to meet surge in global demand

‘We’ve got to get those numbers back up so that we don’t lose market share into the export markets,’ analyst Matt Dalgleish said

Australia is one of the world’s largest beef exporters, with major markets in China, Japan and South Korea

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Australian rump steaks at a butcher in Melbourne. Photo: AFP

Published: 7:45pm, 2 Mar 2021Updated: 8:05pm, 2 Mar 2021

In a potential blow to steak lovers the world over, Australian beef may slip off global menus if cattle producers can’t hasten the pace of a nationwide herd rebuild.

With herd sizes near the lowest since the early 1990s, the nation’s beef producers face the possibility of losing their No. 2 exporter position behind Brazil simply because they don’t have the stock available to service a global market as demand picks up steam up post-Covid-19.

The risks of that are growing as some farmers continue to send female cattle to the slaughterhouse instead of keeping them to expand herds. The latest official data show the ratio of female cattle processed as a proportion of total slaughter – an indicator for whether a herd is in restocking phase – at 48.2 per cent, not enough to qualify for a technical rebuild, classified at 47 per cent and under.

While there’s still time to get that ratio down, it needs to happen now as restocking is a years-long process from calf to slaughter and the industry faces a range of headwinds, said Matt Dalgleish, manager of commodity market insights at Thomas Elder Markets.

“We’ve got to get those numbers back up so that we don’t lose market share into the export markets,” he said.

Australia’s beef industry has seen some turbulent times after years of drought forced farmers, who were unable to support herds on parched pastures, to cull hoards of cattle. The resultant oversupply on the market caused Australian cattle prices to plummet in 2019 to half the levels seen today.