NOBODY really knows for certain, but it's fair to say that the ducks on the beef cattle industry's supply pond are lining up.
There are numerous reasons to suggest these raised levels of confidence for beef are well founded.
The chat around the marketplace is very upbeat.
Processors, feeders and agents alike all seem to be singing from the same hymn sheet.
They are saying that even cows are expected to make $2 a kilogram as the calendar churns through 2015.
This won't be a new high as we did see this type of money momentarily in spring.
Others also tell of $5/kg deals for 100-day grain-fed cattle being offered by a Queensland processing works.
'Five dollars a kilogram?' you might say.
'When has the industry seen that before?'
And even more recently, feeder steers at the Roma, Qld, saleyards last week made 235c/kg liveweight, which add weight to the saying: the wheels of this much-anticipated stronger demand are already turning.
In the words of cricket commentator Bill Lawry, 'it's all happening'.
The January beef weaner sales that kick off on the first Monday of the new year at Hamilton will be much celebrated and highly charged with emotion.
Generally speaking it's been a tough second half to the year for the 70,000 beef weaners that will be offered in January.
Similar to last year, the best grass in the country has been found in Victoria.
But unlike last year, the North East and Gippsland and southern and central NSW are expected to have a huge influence on the overall outcome.
While the pattern of dry weather appears to be breaking up through northern NSW and Queensland it may be too late at this stage to find many orders from this neck of the woods in January.
But with the northern herd severely depleted, the 'big numbers' men of the Australian cattle industry will have to think smartly through their 2015 buying strategies, with live exports from northern Australia again breathing fire.
Given the Australian dollar has declined by 10 per cent against its US counterpart to low-80-cent levels and the US grinding beef market is still absorbing record volumes of Australia beef, a day of reckoning seems not too far away.
Whether this comes in January for the opening sales of the new year or in the following months, there's no disputing the best cattle in the Australian beef industry are bred in the south.
If the big boys from the north want them, they will have to come and compete.
Murray Arnel
Stock store analyst for Stock & Land.
Stock store analyst for Stock & Land.
