ABS stats show record lamb production year

Newly released Australian Bureau of Statistics from the final quarter of 2023 show that red meat production was up 2.4 per cent for the quarter, with a record quarterly lamb slaughter figure of 6,674,500 lambs helping drive up the annual figures.

Pricing struggles saw the gross value of sheep and lambs slaughtered drop 7.6pc to $883.5 million for the quarter.

MLA market information manager Stephen Bignell said the significant flock rebuild since 2020 had contributed to the sheepmeat sector hitting the record production levels, as predicted last year.

"The biggest sheep flock for 15 years, including the greatest number of ewes and biggest number of lambs, has resulted in these record slaughter and production rates yet again this year," he said.

"Despite anxieties into the capacity of processing facilities to cope with the backlog of lambs, these figures indicate that they were able to cope with the numbers supplied.

"This resulted in strong exports as well as plenty of lamb being available domestically, which was enjoyed by many Australians over the summer.

"Lamb carcase weights were down 3.64pc to 24.09kg.

"This is close to the ideal carcase weight for Australian domestically-consumed lamb - which is around 24kg."

It was also a record year for sheep and mutton production, with a 43pc increase in mutton production to 2,446,003 tonnes, marking the largest calendar year of mutton production since 2006.

Rabobank associate analyst Edward McGeogh said the final quarter's figures rose more than he expected.

"One of the surprises was probably in Victoria, just the jump that we saw...from my perspective I thought they'd probably see a lot more coming on quarter one of this year as opposed to flooding into the market in Q4 last year, given that they had pretty good seasonal conditions," he said.

"But speaking to some of our team it sounds like there's still quite a lot being offloaded even in the first two months of this year."

Mr McGeogh said this year production and slaughter was expected to remain high.

"The big factor will be just how much the sheep slaughter will impact new season lambs coming onto the market in the Q3, Q4 end of this year," he said.

"I think we'd expect to see pretty similar if not elevated lamb numbers for the first six months of this year, but I do think that they will fall off towards the end of the year, but it will really come back to how big the influx will be in the first half of the year as to whether or not we will hit that record again."

Mr McGeogh said he wouldn't expect to see too much of an uptick in prices in the next few months, given that many producers would probably look to offload stock given how much stronger prices were now than they were three months ago.

"Pricing improvement is probably looking more towards that new season spring drop... see if we get a bit more of a demand given that we probably won't have as many lambs coming into the market," he said.

It was also the biggest production year for beef since 2019, with production up 18pc year-on-year to 2,210,954 tonnes.

Cattle slaughter reached over the 7 million mark, up 20pc year-on-year.

The gross value of cattle and calves slaughtered in the quarter decreased 8.9pc to $2.9 billion.

"This was thanks to a large national herd and processors handling the increase," Mr Bignell said.

"The last quarter also showed a female slaughter ratio of 46.87pc, bringing the annual FSR average to 46.58pc.

"A FSR rate of below 47pc indicates that the Australian cattle herd is in a marginal growth phase following two consecutive destocking periods as shown in the middle of 2022."

Meanwhile chicken meat production was up 1.1pc for the quarter to 361,378 tonnes, while pig production was up 0.7pc to 118,077 tonnes.