"Somewhat Of A Panic" - Wait Times For Oz Ranchers To Sell Cattle Grow To Months As Drought Nears
Last edited Sat Oct 14, 2023, 08:02 AM - Edit history (1)
Wait times for farmers seeking to offload livestock to feedlots and abattoirs are increasing from weeks to months in some areas, putting further strain on producers facing a grim summer outlook.
A rapid shift to drier conditions, low commodity prices and labour constraints have created the “perfect storm” in Australia’s meat processing supply chains, according to the industry. And farmers who can’t sell their stock quickly at already discounted prices will be forced to feed them for longer, increasing losses for some farm businesses.
Patrick Hutchinson, the chief executive of the Australian Meat Industry Council, said record growth in national herd sizes over the last three years followed by drier conditions and the declaration of El Niño has pushed the livestock market into “somewhat of a panic”.
“Some questions need to be asked more publicly about who was encouraging people to produce so much livestock and not having an expectation that there was going to be a crunch,” Hutchinson said. A northern New South Wales livestock agent, Mark Smith, said wait times for farmers hoping to sell stock had ballooned from a couple of weeks to up to six weeks.
EDIT
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/oct/13/abattoirs-overwhelmed-as-farmers-offload-livestock-before-big-dry-begins
