Commercial Viewpoint
Darren's Voice..
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Spring selling season is almost upon us and every year seems to bring new challenges , after a fantastic but damaging wet last season this spring brings with it hope for a return to a more traditional wet season.
To say this year has been challenging would be an understatement, massive floods, Cyclone Yasi which cost untold numbers of people huge amounts of money, the meat market opened fairly strongly & brought with it promise of the opportunity to make some money after several trying years. However Joe Ludwig & Bob Brown had other ideas the live export debacle will send shockwaves throughout our industry for a long time to come, one wonders if any common sense, brains or anything remotely resembling decency are required to stand for parliament let alone get elected, the media are running amuck and delivering election results that our children will be paying for for generations.
Then we get to market pressures several respected cattlemen have mentioned to me of late how profitability has left our industry with rising costs and a static end market. The trend to return to British type cattle to produce "flatbacks" is disturbing as premiums offered will not come near compensating for lesser performance and higher cost of production, in our neighbourhood it is common to see daily weight gains reduced by 30 to 40% with British type and even euro cross cattle unfortunately fad markets seem to offer short term gains of 10 or more cents per kilo but reality says this can´t cover reduced weight for age or higher input requirements so for ourselves we will continue to produce quality purebred Brahman commercial cattle and focus on improving carcass quality all the time to avoid rising input costs. We haven´t treated our cattle for ticks now except for clearing purposes for some 28 years, and the costs by now must be astronomical. This trend of returning to British cattle again will result in paddocks becoming loaded with ticks once more and the margins in our industry now will not cover the increased cost.
To all who participated in the recent protest convoy congratulations I think we need far more of this type of action to highlight the plight of all people and communities in regional and remote areas because no one seems to take us seriously anymore as we don´t kick and scream nearly loud enough This show of unity was great to see, a pity the media couldn´t report numbers accurately. The contempt shown by Messers Gillard, Ludwig, Crean & others highlights this draconian government we are saddled with.
So in closing to all our fellow bull sale vendors best wishes for a satisfactory selling season, to our friends and colleagues in the north struggling to come to terms with the ramifications of government stupidity our thoughts are with you, as we look forward to what´s ahead with some trepidation.
Our sale bulls for the year are shaping up nicely, Springbok sons continue to impress us what a great sire he is proving to be. Hope to catch up with all our friends and colleagues over the sale season.
Cheers
Darren
