News

Since the improvement in seasonal conditions over the summer, cattle prices have recovered from last year’s lows. The Eastern Young Cattle Indicator (EYCI) fell to a nine-year low in October 2023, reaching 349c/kg, as last year’s El Nino event saw much of the country experience heat wave conditions. While prices remained depressed for the month of October, an improvement in seasonal conditions and well above-median rainfall saw prices recover in December, closing out the year at 534c/kg.

As the Australian beef industry returns to some sort of ‘normal’ following the post-drought years and the marked price drop which followed, industry news is dominated by high slaughter rates, a large number of cattle in saleyards and feedlots, and prices which sit far off the highs of a few years ago. Given the widely held view that a return to an Eastern Young Cattle Indicator (EYCI) of 1,200c/ kg is unlikely in the short-term, farm business profits are increasingly focused on margins – what age and weight to sell from farm to achieve the greatest return, what channels to sell through, and what portion of the final retail price is being delivered back to the producer.

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