THE inability to move stock considerable distances to market, single buyers at saleyards with multiple orders and the lack of buyers at smaller sales are emerging as key issues as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission rolls out its cattle and beef market study.
In the over-the-hooks arena, it has been questions about who grades carcases, pre and post sale weights and the fair payment for offal and hide that have dominated concern.
How processing plants were making decisions about cutting capacity due to the current extreme lack of cattle, and how they were determining when and to what degree to cut shifts, has also been a subject of discussion.
With forums across the country now wrapped up, analysis of information collected is underway ahead of the release of draft findings next month.
The market study, announced in April, is looking at issues such as competition between buyers of cattle, the transparency of cattle pricing information, the differences in bargaining strength and the allocation of commercial risk between cattle producers and buyers.
It is a look at broadly expressed concerns, as opposed to an investigation into complaints received, which aims to shed light on why practices are occurring and help inform the industry of issues, according to ACCC Agriculture Commissioner Mick Keogh.
Fifty direct submissions have been received and, outside of those, substantial input from
industry people providing specific information about particular situations, Mr Keogh said.
There have also been contributions made under the study’s special confidential arrangement.
Up to 100 people attended individual forums.
“What emerged was the marked differences in issues depending on where a forum was held,” Mr Keogh said.
“For example, at Wodonga concern was expressed about behaviour in relation to saleyards while in Bunbury, Western Australia, there was a strong focus on over-the-hooks sales.
“What that highlighted to us is that the market situation varies considerably depending on geography.”
The information coming through was showing enormous complexity in the beef and cattle market, he said.
“In many cases, there is now an understanding of why but what to do about it is harder to determine,” he said.
“It’s clear, for example, the ability to move stock considerable distances gives producers more choices however the increased specialisation of processors means it is not simply a matter of joining dots on a map.”
In some places access to grids was an issue while in others, phone apps were providing extremely relevant and timely information, Mr Keogh said.
That was probably determined by the area or scale of the operation - larger producers seemed to have no difficulty in securing the information they required, he said.
While the written submissions were dominated by smaller-scale producers, Mr Keogh said the suppliers of information being assessed overall stretched from the small to very large.
Some forums, for example the Mount Gambier, South Australia event, were dominated by large-scale producers and processors, he said.
The Australian Meat Industry Council’s national director processing Steve Martyn said the study was independent and professional and had the support of the processing industry.
“We will be very interested in the information gleaned,” he said.
“Judging by other ACCC market studies, a lot of information is collected and we are hopeful this study results in a true assessment of the challenges the processing sector is facing.”
On the subject of how shift cutbacks were being determined, Mr Martyn said the sheer lack of livestock and through-the-roof cattle price was forcing these individual commercial decisions.
“This time last year, we were processing 175,000 head a week and now we are down to 125,000,” he said.
“That is a substantial reduction in throughput which equates to rosters and days you simply can’t operate.”
