Rising awareness of the risks and costs from livestock diseases, and growing farm sustainability expectations from meat processors and consumers are setting the scene for a much more data-dependent stock selling future.
Data demand is likely to supercharge another chapter in the evolution of digital livestock trading platform, AuctionsPlus, just as it catches its breath after online buying and selling activity ballooned during the COVID lockdowns.
"We see a lot more need for information to help buyers make trading decisions," said AuctionsPlus chief executive officer, Angus Street.
Background data about the production environment, animal welfare, farm sustainability and the transparency of livestock enterprises could potentially be as valuable to buyers as details about the age, liveweight and breeding genetics of livestock offered for sale.
Consumer concerns about carbon emissions from farm flocks and herds and the greenhouse gases emitted when moving and processing animals, were already forcing producers and downstream players to think hard about their carbon footprint.
RELATED READING
"Expectations around ESG (environmental, sustainability and transparent governance) issues are being driven by buyers who need to show their customers they have sustainable and ethical procurement strategies in place," Mr Street said.
"At the same time, a growing number of producers and agribusinesses see they can effectively promote value in what they do by adopting ESG principles."
Also appealing were the practical advantages of reducing livestock freight and costs to and from regional selling centres, and cutting the mustering and saleyard pressures on animals and their owners.
In New Zealand, where AuctionsPlus has been running online sales since 2020, Mr Street foresaw digital transactions climbing because of increasing regulatory pressures on farm sector emissions and effluent, and potentially even forcing saleyards to close.
Biosecurity aware
On both sides of the Tasman the chance to avoid unnecessary stock movements and selling centre encounters also appealed to producers increasingly wary about biosecurity risks.
Those risks may range from headline animal health concerns like foot and mouth, through to the spread of footrot or weed seeds.
"In general, we see quite a lot of reasons for, and a lot of value in, developing more digital decision making help for buyers and sellers," Mr Street said.
Background data on livestock and their origins has been in AuctionsPlus' DNA since the selling service began as a clunky, dial-up computer marketing service back in 1987.
"We don't intend to bite off more market ambitions than we can handle, but I expect we'll be able to do much more to help buyers make sustainable procurement decisions," he said.
"We're using the next year or so to consolidate and reinvest in the people and platforms which have supported our recent growth."
After two years of unprecedented rises in livestock transactions on the digital platform after COVID-19 forced saleyards to restrict attendees and stud sales closed to visitors, Mr Street said AuctionsPlus now owed its customers some extra investment in its trading platform.
As the post-drought selling rush had subsided, now was a good time to "recalibrate and make our website more user friendly", including providing more customer service tools and selling agency training.
Expansion rush
In the past two years Sydney-based AuctionsPlus' surging user numbers had forced it to almost double its payroll to 75, particularly in customer service and regional support resource areas.
This year it also launched a $2.5 million upgrade, effectively enabling up to 1m bidders on the network.
However, Mr Street, said there was no longer a mad scramble to simply keep up with the online sales and interfaced physical trade activity generated when COVID lockdowns coincided with a sudden post-drought restocking boom.
In fact, given the market disruption caused by eastern states floods and the general economic outlook, he would be surprised if AuctionsPlus went close to matching its extraordinary $3.5 billion gross transaction turnover of 2021-22.
When Mr Street took over as the CEO in 2018 the business had just posted annual gross transactions worth $670m, which subsequently fell to $650m in 2019 as drought bit hard in eastern states.
However, when rain returned restockers went into overdrive scouring the country for sheep and cattle, and stud sales went online en masse.
AuctionsPlus notched up record transactions of $1.3 billion for 2019-20 which grew by another $1b in 2020-21, and again last financial year.
Restocking had now slowed and AuctionsPlus was anticipating a typical lull in the agricultural cycle of possibly two or three years.
"It's the opportunity we need to incrementally invest in people and technology and take stock of what's going to add value for our customers."
Start the day with all the big news in agriculture! Sign up below to receive our daily Farmonline newsletter.
Andrew Marshall
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
Andrew Marshall is the group agribusiness writer for ACM's state agricultural weeklies and websites. He is a former editor at The Land and has worked in various Rural Press group roles in Canberra, North Richmond (NSW) and Toowoomba (Qld).
