I quipped that a miracle happened at Beef Week 2021. After spending the whole week there, I had not fielded a single complaint from a grazier!
While not completely true, it was salad days for the beef industry a few years ago. The only complaint seemed to be the cocky, plant-based meat industry. Does anyone even remember the Rebel Whopper burger.
A few years on and vegans have not taken over the world. The much hyped company, Beyond Meat, has seen its share price fall by 95 per cent since Beef Week 2021.
But something scarier than meat-shaming vegans is now on the horizon for the red meat industry. Last week the first El Nino since 2019 was declared and last year the first Labor Government, since Julia Gillard shut down the live cattle trade was elected.
The impending hot, dry summer is leading to a rush by graziers to send their cattle to the meatworks. Over the last few wet years the national cattle herd has rebuilt to 29 million head, the most in a decade. There are now concerns that a possible drought will not produce enough feed for them all.
The number of cattle going through our meatworks has increased to 126,000 per week, up from 115,000 per week earlier in the year. But this is still well short of the 160,000 per week that were being processed during the 2019 drought. Like almost all businesses, meatworks are struggling to get enough staff to run at full capacity. While the Government has been letting in almost everyone to the country over the past year, there needs to be more focus on the skills that our economy really needs.
Foreign university students are unlikely to take up a job in a bone room on their weekends.
The other thing that could help this impending crisis is more dams. This week the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, came to Rocky with a warning that climate change would cause more droughts. He suggested that it was up to Australian farmers to change their climate damaging behaviours to avoid these droughts. It was not clear how Australian farmers would do this given they account for just 0.15 per cent of global emissions.
But there are things we can do to avoid the worst impact of droughts. The Treasurer seems ignorant of this invention called a dam. It allows you to store water when it is wet (like it has been these past few years) so you can have some water when it is dry (like it looks like it will be over the next few years).
The last Coalition Government had put aside over $6 billion to build dams, including the Urannah and Hells Gate Dams in North Queensland. In Jim Chalmers’ first budget last October he cut the funding to these dams. If he is that worried about droughts he should immediately reinstate this funding.
Jim is also meant to go to Winton this week, historically the heart of Queensland’s sheep industry. I hope he gets a chance to talk to producers about the dire impacts of his government’s impending ban to the live sheep trade.
Just as Labor’s live cattle ban did a decade ago, the live sheep trade ban is crashing prices and not just in the West where the trade occurs. Across Australia sheep prices are down 37 per cent.
It has been a great few years for the cattle and sheep industries. We may have some tough, dry years ahead but the long term outlook for these key Australian agriculture industries is fantastic. Let’s hope Jim comes back to Rocky for Beef Week next year and announces that he will build dams and not ban the export of agricultural produce. That would be the best way to ensure that the mood next year is even better than in 2021.
