Spring heat takes its toll...

IT was still only October with summer more than a month away when the temperature in Winton on Sunday was an Australia-wide high of 44.3 degrees.

Agent Tom Brodie was kind enough to brief me on the impact the heat is having on this drought affected area. He said at 6am on Monday it was already 28 degrees and it is noticeable the cattle are spending much of the day at the water.

This means there is less time for the long walks needed to find sparse feed and is compounding the plight of already drought-weakened cattle. Not surprisingly the heat is knocking them around.

Under these circumstances and with no respite in sight Tom thought any cattle that have to move would need to be doing so within the next three to four weeks. Already a lot of the young cattle have gone and so too the feedlot types with some people now dipping into core breeders. The better conditioned of these are not even being preg tested and are going straight to the meatworks.

Some lighter, younger breeders are going on feed and if it happens to rain they might return home otherwise they will be killed at 60-70 days. He said they have not yet got to the stage of big mobs of light conditioned cows and calves but that could be just about to start.

With older male cattle there are a few steers left in the Boulia district where the March/April rain ran creeks and channels, but these were more 500-550kg types rather than proper heavy bullocks and are being tipped out now to make room.

Normally a regular user of AuctionsPlus, Tom has hardly used it at all in recent months because people simply do not have the feed to hold cattle for assessing and delivery. In the present circumstances if they bring a paddock in they want them to go somewhere without delay.

YEARS ago it commanded a very considerable reputation for the scale and scope of its meat and poultry operations but Smithfield Market is now looking tired and its traders seem resigned to the fact that its days may be numbered.

Just a couple of months ago Smithfield held a huge birthday party to celebrate 150 years since the current site was officially opened in 1868 following comprehensive redevelopment.

But the history goes back much further with records showing more than 800 years of market activity at the location.

More recently pressure has been mounting for the area to undergo urban renewal and site owner, City of London Corporation, has now confirmed that it has plans to merge Smithfield with its two other wholesale markets (Billingsgate and New Spitalfields) on a 100 acre site outside the city.

When I visited the market recently I was surprised at how small the meat trading area was; just one arcade-like passageway with frontage for traders on both sides. Each trader’s area had a refrigerated display for packaged cuts, a tiny dog-box office and some carcass chiller and break-up space behind.

In some respects it reminded me of the old Cannon Hill meat hall. There were only 16 traders listed on the corporation’s notice board which seemed to tally with the scale of the place but in turn seemed at odds with claims that Smithfield is the largest wholesale meat market in the UK and one of the largest in Europe. Still it was interesting to see some of the diversity of product on offer.

In one cabinet there was Australian striploin from Borthwicks Mackay for £14.95/kg (A$27-28) alongside local lamb racks for £13.95, Argentine grain-fed picanha (rump caps) for £13.95, Argentine grain-fed rib eye for £15.80 and some Canadian cote de boeuf (bone-in rib) at £15.90. Noticeable however was the abundance of very cheap pork.

Boneless pork loin was just £2.80/kg (A$5.00) Smithfield originally serviced the requirements of butchers, restaurants and hotels in the greater London area but the traditional butcher shop has all but disappeared.

Specialty butcher stalls still exist in retail markets such as Borough and Halal shops continue to service Muslim communities but generally the trade has gone to the supermarkets. The redevelopment of the current Smithfield site in the mid 1800s came about because an earlier decision to move the livestock and meat activity away from Smithfield to a site in Islington was a failure.

Whether the market can survive another attempt at relocation away from its ancestral roots remains to be seen.

A FURTHER six per cent drop in the Queensland kill last week underscores the tightened supply situation that has emerged since the rain began in the first week of October.

MLA reported 64,325 slaughtered for the week which is almost 4000 head less than the previous week resulting in a considerable amount of lost time for Queensland processors.

No surprise that most of that loss is in female cattle as the first consequence of the rain where it did fall was curtailment of drought-induced sell down of breeders.

But the pressure on supply may increase even further if the rainfall predicted for a wide swathe of Central Queensland this week materialises.

Major processors hiked their grid rates on Friday and Monday by 20c/kg taking 4-tooth ox to 555c/kg and heavy cow to 480.

These adjustments were not unexpected considering cows made as much as 268c/kg on the ground at Blackall last Thursday and sold to a 280c high and 263c average at Dalby on Wednesday.

These saleyard rates convert to better than 500c dressed and are right up with the best grid rates we saw in 2017.

That might encourage some to think there may still be a bit of upside to go on current grids but it is worth remembering there comes a point where extra money will not buy processors the cattle needed to prevent lost time.