ALFA: Market insights across five decades of the lotfeeding industry

Early pioneers enticed Japanese buyers to come down under, kick-starting the nation's chilled and frozen beef exports that are now worth about $9.5 billion annually (for grain and grass-fed products).

As other grain-fed markets then opened in Asia, Europe and the US, local lotfeeders blazed a trail in establishing a unique third-party audited quality assurance system covering elements of environmental management and animal welfare through the NFAS.

The sector was also closely involved in developing red meat product description and grading systems that have led to the modern-day Meat Standards Australia (MSA) program, which is now responsible for more than three million cattle graded each year across Australia.

NSW-based owner of Sutcliffe and Mort, Stephen Kelly, has vast experience in the Australian cattle industry and said lotfeeders had been integral to the development and success of the nation's beef exporting sector.

Mr Kelly was a long-time director of Japanese-based Nippon Meat Packers in the 1990s and 2000s and said it was the liberalisation of the Japanese market and easing of its beef import tariffs (from 70 to 50 per cent) in 1991 that really launched exports of Australian grain-fed beef.

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"Early lotfeeders spent much time and energy in securing Japanese buyers in the 1970s and 1980s, but volumes were very restricted by tariffs," he said.

"Their groundwork did pay-off, though, when tariffs were lifted.

"Japan started to buy in bigger volumes and Japanese companies quickly moved to invest in their own lotfeeding infrastructure in Australia.

Mr Kelly said Nippon's Whyalla feedlot near Texas, on the Queensland-NSW border was the biggest in Australia for 30 years, with its capacity boosted from an initial 6000 head in the mid1980s to 60,000 head by the 2000s.

He said Japan got a taste for Australian Angus cattle, as our production of their preferred Wagyu beef was small at the time, and this had been a major driver of the popularity of that breed with local growers and finishers.

Japan remained Australia's dominant beef export destination until the late-1990s and still takes more than half of total exported volumes, followed by Korea.

Mr Kelly said domestic markets for grain-fed beef had been slower to take-off, as exporters focused on getting higher premiums from overseas buyers to cover their costs of feeding and finishing.

Conditions overseas were challenging and Australia faced tough competition from the US and Brazil in all developed and emerging markets for chilled and frozen beef.

1950s

Australia exported about 17pc of its beef in the 1950s, increasing to 28pc in the 1960s, 33pc in the 1970s and more than 70pc today.

1960s

Australian beef exports were almost exclusively supplied to Britain prior to the 1920s.

Genetic improvements and growing export demand rapidly increased Australian cattle numbers in the late 1960s and 1970s.

1970s

The US became Australia's dominant beef export market in the 1970s and 1980s.

Until 1973, Australian beef prices were rising due to strong demand growth, then very high world beef production in the early 1970s coincided with a global economic downturn, which caused an over-supply in the US and globally - causing a rapid herd liquidation and demand and price shocks through global beef markets.

Export demand for Australian beef became virtually non-existent and Europe and Japan ceased trading with outside markets.

Severe trade restrictions on all of Australia's major export markets meant an over-supply at home and a massive fall in retail prices - but caused a spike in local beef consumption to more than 60 kilograms per person per annum.

Australian beef prices dropped 63pc from 1973 to 1974 and there was a phase of rapid herd contraction - which meant six million less cattle by 1980.

1980s

Overseas markets again opened for trade in the early 1980s, cattle prices rapidly bounced back to near 1973 levels.

Severe drought from 1982 then sent prices south again and the herd fell by 2.1 million head to 22.1 million by 1984.

After bottoming-out in 1986, the Australian cattle herd was gradually rebuilt in the 1990s. Beef farm Total Factor Productivity (TFP) trended up from the late 1980s - partly driven by the expansion of the feedlot sector and live export trade.

These productivity gains supported beef supply growth of about 2.6pc per year in the 1980s, but higher supplies then put downward pressure on prices throughout the 1990s.

1990s

In 1991, the tariff on beef imports into Japan fell from 70 to 50pc - and was then reduced to 38.5pc by 2003, and similar changes were also evident in Korea.

This trade liberalisation in key markets, several years of favourable seasonal conditions and a depreciating Australian dollar put upward pressure on real farm gate prices late in the 1990s.

2000s

The 2000s is described as the decade of droughts and BSE trade, which hampered productivity gains, despite growth in lotfeeding, and the national herd contracted by one million head in 10 years.

BSE had severe implications for trade flows throughout the 2000s, impacting on Japan, Canada and the US.

2010s

Respite came at the end of the 2000s, before more droughts in 2013-14 and 2017-19.

Australian beef exports to Japan significantly increased, helping to increase farm gate prices, and by 2020, cattle prices were again breaking records and slaughter levels hit an historical low.

Higher volumes of cattle were crossing borders in 2020 as growers in several states continued re-building herds post-drought, but the COVID-19 pandemic put the brakes on export demand.

Australia's lotfeeding market entered a period of price fluctuation, after steady increases in recent years had resulted in record levels of cattle on feed in the December 2019 quarter.

Source: MLA