Crisis meetings over Australia’s plummeting sheep prices
The sheep industry will hold crisis talks this week to discuss the dramatic drop in prices being paid to farmers. Industry leaders say process for sheep and lamb are ‘dismal’,
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00:00 61, not a big quip, 61 gutter.
00:04 Another mob of sheep sells at these livestock yards in Victoria, but there's little reason
00:09 to celebrate.
00:10 The prices have really tightened right up across Australia really.
00:13 There's an oversupply of lambs at the moment.
00:16 A weakening demand for exports doesn't help, and there's not enough feed as the continent
00:21 dries out, which looks to get worse in El Nino.
00:25 Livestock prices are terrible.
00:27 The remaining loads I've got to sell now, we're talking $2 a kilo.
00:32 We were north of heading up over $6 a kilo 12 months ago, so it's significantly less.
00:39 Trent Anderson has 4,500 sheep and 3,500 lambs on his farm in Gippsland.
00:46 He recently had to put down about 100 of his older stock because they would sell for less
00:51 than the cost to get them to market.
00:53 It's a bit of a shame to be wasting a product like that, but it sort of just is what it
00:57 is.
01:00 It's a decision farmers are facing across the country, and it takes a huge toll.
01:05 It's devastating, not only financial devastation, but like some of our sheep have been around
01:10 for about eight years and we know them personally.
01:12 Despite a livestock price crash of up to 70% in the past year, shoppers are still only
01:18 paying 7% less.
01:20 It can take up to nine months for price drops to flow through to retailers, and there are
01:25 many other factors that contribute to what you pay for red meat.
01:28 You've also got to factor in the cost of power, cost of labour, cost of diesel and the ability
01:33 to create and package meat.
01:36 That's all risen too, so I think it's still got to work its way through the system yet.
01:40 Could be six months before we might see some softer meat prices.
01:44 For now though, there are no winners at either end of the supply chain.
01:49 [BLANK_AUDIO]