Australia-Farmers re-stocking after best rain in 4 years.

RE-STOCKING THE FARMS.

The rain has come to most of Australia after 4 years of the worse drought in recent memory.

Farmers are now re-stocking after years of cutting back on numbers of sheep and cattle, the damage already done is not going to be easy to repair.

Cattle slaughter will drop to 8.7 million head in the current financial year 2008-9, with a production of 2.15 million tons of beef. By increasing the carcass weight of cattle slaughtered, the shortfall for 2009 can be easily made up.

Lamb slaughter for the financial year 2008-9 will be 19.5 million head, the large number of ewes that went for slaughter this year, are going to have a big impact on lamb numbers later in the year.

The lower Australian dollar, is going to make Australia very competitive on word markets, they will pick up a lot of the South American beef trade.

The calf sales that began on New Years Day, reflect the increase in prices for young cattle and the farmers desire to re-stock their properties.