Cattle and Ovine slaughter heading back to levels of a fortnight ago.

Lamb chops

One of the big announcements regarding the slowing of the Victorian Covid spread, and the economy, was cuts to meat processing capacity. The experience in the US earlier in the year brings the worst-case scenario to mind. Scenes of backing up livestock and meat shortages are quickly brought up. In terms of impact on livestock […]

Lamb price border divide

merino

Keeping up with the lamb market at the moment is about as difficult as keeping track of how many mates you can have over for dinner. And much like Covid-19 restrictions, it is dependent on where you live. This week’s opening eastern states lambs indicators were anywhere between 2¢/kg and 52¢/kg higher week-on-week, while all […]

Forecasting good times for Cow/Calf operators

Cattle in green field

The July update of Meat & Livestock Australia’s (MLA) Cattle Industry Projections was released late last week and there were a few tweaks, but the outlook for supply remains extremely tight. This is largely good news for those with cows and not great for the rest of the supply chain. Current cattle market dynamics are […]

Long term real prices for cotton and wool

Shorn wool fibres

Over the recess in wool auctions, a reader asked how the current price volatility in wool prices stacked up against history. This article takes a quick look back across recent centuries as an answer to this question. In recent memory, the crash of the early 1990s in wool prices when the average Merino price fell […]