Strong overseas demand and tightening cattle supplies should support Australian beef returns and cattle prices for the next two to three years, market experts told about 200 producers at the All About Beef forum in Cloncurry, in north-west Queensland, hosted by the AgForce Queensland Cattle Board and Cattle Australia.
Market analyst Simon Quilty said President Donald Trump's move to cut tariffs on 300,000 tonnes of imported beef could delay a US herd rebuild by about 12 months, because it weakened the price signal producers need to keep cattle. "To grow again, the herd needs higher prices, not lower prices," he said. That leaves Australia's largest market needing imported beef for longer; US feedlots are also producing heavier, fattier carcases whose trim must be blended with lean Australian beef for hamburgers.
Meat & Livestock Australia managing director Michael Crowley said the average American eats three hamburgers a week, about one billion a week across the country. Quilty said Australia had filled the gap left by falling US exports: as US shipments to Japan fell 27 percent, Australia's rose 27 percent, and Australian shipments to Korea rose 50 percent while America's fell 21. Australia has kept shipping about 6,500 to 7,000 tonnes a month to China despite a 55 percent safeguard tariff, and China's review of beef imports is due in November.
At home, a long period of high female slaughter, especially in southern Australia, has depleted breeding herds. Saleyard numbers are falling, and rising vealer prices are an early sign of a rebuild, Quilty said; heifers may move to a premium over feeder steers. Feedlot capacity has grown from about one million head to around 1.6 million, and he expects about 2.1 million by 2028.
Quilty expects prices to rise for two to three years and then ease as rebuilt herds lift supply around 2030-31. Processors have added capacity for almost 2,000 more cattle a day in southern Australia and 600 in the north, and the number of foreign workers has risen from 75,000 during COVID to about 126,000. Crowley also pointed to growing demand in South-East Asia, including live cattle for Indonesia.
The report was written by James Nason for Beef Central.
Source: Beef Central
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