Australia exported 128,836 tonnes of beef in October, 3 percent less than in September and 8 percent less than in October last year, as rain disrupted slaughter and producers held cattle back until next year, according to monthly trade data from the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry reported by Beef Central.
A surge in production had been expected in the last quarter as large parts of the country dried off, but it has not come. The week before last was the smallest full national processing week, without a holiday, since the season restarted in January, at just over 140,000 head, although that figure is understated because the Queensland processor Stanbroke no longer reports its weekly kill of about 6,000 head.
For the year to the end of October, Australia has shipped 1.338 million tonnes of chilled and frozen beef, still 71,000 tonnes more than a year earlier thanks to a strong start to the season. Meat & Livestock Australia's September forecast was a record 1.646 million tonnes for the year, up 15 percent on last year's record of 1.546 million, but with most export plants due to stop on 17-18 December, seven weeks away, a total a little over 1.5 million tonnes now looks more realistic, Beef Central said. The Bureau of Meteorology's pessimistic spring and summer outlook, built around the threat of a strong El Nino, has also changed the picture.
China was the market hit hardest. Under a 55 percent tariff in force from mid-June to 31 December, it is taking only 20 to 40 percent of earlier volumes. October shipments reached 10,852 tonnes, about 4,000 tonnes more than in September but far below the 20,200 tonnes of October last year. For the ten months China has taken 173,800 tonnes, 82 percent of it frozen, against 223,000 tonnes a year earlier.
Traders expect the low volumes to give way to record shipments in January, when the new quota year starts and exporters race to fill Australia's 206,000-tonne tariff-free allowance for 2027, possibly with unusually large chilled airfreight shipments to restock Chinese storage.
Reporting by Jon Condon for Beef Central.
Photo: John Robert McPherson / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Source: Beef Central
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