While recording a store market video this week, Wodonga agent Clinton Hilton commented after the Wodonga market, Thursday, that it was unusual to the see the market bounce on the back of limited rain.
And that’s what happened at NVLX Barnawartha when agents Elders, Landmark and Corcoran Parker conducted their monthly market comprising 3100 store cattle.
Mr Hilton said the reason for the bounce in the market, which saw steer and heifer values jump $100 to $120 and the better cows and calves by $300, was the arrival and influence of a handful of South Australian orders to underpin the demand.
I wrote in some detail in my previous column last week of the same South Australian influence on a Hamilton sale the week previous whereby prices rose 30 cents a kilogram or $100 a head above expectation.
This strong interest from South Australia, from my observation, was carried to Wodonga albeit with slightly less intensity than at Hamilton.
With an added freight bill to contend with Wodonga feeder weight steers, 360-450kg, averaged 298c/kg lwt (308c/kg at Hamilton) while its lighter, 280-360kg, steers averaged 310c/kg (Hamilton 329-cents).
As an added point of interest on the day of the Wodonga sale the industry’s benchmark indicator – EYCI – averaged 533c/kg while a fortnight earlier on the day of the Hamilton market the indicator averaged 505c/kg and was still headed sharply south.
Come-th the promise of rain and come-th the turnabout in the market it seems.
Because when you review the weekly rainfall across northern NSW and southern Qld where the big cattle numbers are grazed, less than 50mm has fallen and yet the ECYI has bounced 25 points or 5pc on the stemming of the supply flow.
It’s a tricky business, at the best of times, trying to assess the availability of slaughter or indeed store cattle so the industry doesn’t become over- or under-supplied.
And, to make matters even more difficult it was disappointing this week to find an escalation in the dispute among processors, with one major operator withholding its slaughter figures that anonymously adds to wealth and understanding of the industry’s knowledge bank.
In a statement released Tuesday MLA said: “While the majority of meat processing companies provided their slaughter numbers on request this week, one company failed to provide any data for Queensland and NSW and, given their proportion of overall slaughter numbers in those states, the National Livestock Reporting Service (NLRS) elected not to publish slaughter numbers for those states.
“NLRS remain ready to report slaughter numbers for Qld and NSW on (voluntary) supply of slaughter data from processors in those states.”