News

Exploring the complex journey of breeding hornless cattle (polledness), highlighting challenges and strategies from Australian Agricultural Co's initiatives with Mitchell composite and Wagyu herds.

Explore how substantial increases in beef processing capacity across Victoria, South Australia, and NSW are reshaping the national slaughter landscape, with southern states leading the charge in processing growth and cattle sourcing strategies shifting southward.

Australian Meat Group has achieved a major milestone with its Dandenong beef processing facility gaining official approval to export to China. This marks the first new access granted to an Australian red meat processor since 2017, amidst delays attributed to COVID-19 and diplomatic tensions.

Agricultural leaders express outrage over the Senate's approval of a ban on live sheep exports, denouncing it as a politically motivated blow to Australian farming, sparking a broader campaign against live cattle exports.

The Federal Government has announced major reforms to supermarket practices in response to criticism. These include making the Food and Grocery Code mandatory, increasing penalties for breaches, and improving protections for suppliers. Farmers and industry groups support these changes as steps toward fairer competition, though challenges and the need for broader reforms persist.

AS PART of one of the four key work areas in relation to the beef industry’s Carbon Neutral 2030 Roadmap referring to greenhouse gas emissions from livestock, it has been discovered that the current equation used to determine the levels of enteric methane emissions from feedlot cattle may overestimate the numbers.

Cattle numbers on AuctionsPlus dropped by 5% to 16,702 head due to weaker demand, resulting in a 54% clearance rate. Most steer prices rose, while heifer prices varied. New South Wales contributed the most listings, followed by Queensland. Processor activity remained low. Weaner steers sold at a 22% premium over heifers, the highest gap since 2016. Steer prices increased significantly, with notable sales in the over 400kg category.

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NATIONAL supermarket operators Woolworths and Coles have lowered prices on a small selection of popular beef items, effective from winter’s official start on Saturday.

However beef items are only thinly represented among hundreds of grocery and fresh food items listed for reductions by both retailers.

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Nick Blomfield from Cheyenne Pastoral at Walcha has long been a proponent of regenerative agriculture and was recently issued about 12,000 Australian Carbon Credit Units for his project through carbon developer Carbon Link.

Mr Blomfield said the project was based on increasing stocking densities and rest periods – with the property now hosting 144 paddocks over 750ha.

It seems like the cattle processing industry is facing some challenges with increasing slaughter rates and nearing capacity. The recent surge in weekly cattle slaughter, boosted by favorable weather conditions and events like Beef 2024, has pushed the industry's capacity close to its limit.

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The agriculture industry has united in its outrage at the Federal Government's four-year plan to phase out live sheep exports by sea, with many accusing the government of treating the industry with contempt and pandering to animal activists who base their arguments on emotion rather than science.

The livestock export industry has launched a virtual reality (VR) training tool as the latest innovation to support animal welfare training in Indonesian and Vietnamese abattoirs.