More buck for your beef, says ABARE

LIVESTOCK farmers should enjoy improved conditions next financial year, with the average saleyard price of beef and lamb forecast to jump 7% in 2008-09, compared with this financial year.

Farmers received the positive news from the Government's chief agricultural economics agency, the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, in a report released at ABARE's "Bendigo Regional Outlook Conference" held yesterday.

Sheep meat and wool growers will be among the key beneficiaries of the improved conditions, with ABARE predicting lamb production next financial year to be near "a historically high 412,000 tonnes".

Lamb exports are tipped to rise 2% to 163,000 tonnes, but mutton exports are expected to fall considerably (24%), to 108,000 tonnes, because of lower mutton production.

Strong demand abroad and at home for Australian lamb, combined with a national sheep flock that is relatively small in historic terms — at about 86 million sheep — is helping push up prices.

Historically, it was said that Australia rode on the sheep's back. But in modern times, it could be said that sheep farmers are riding on lamb cutlets and lamb loin chops, just as much as on the fleece.