Sorry Steak Lovers, Australia's Running Out of Cows
Bloomberg
3/2/2021
(Bloomberg) --
In what would be a blow to steak lovers the world over, Australian beef may slip off global menus if cattle producers Down Under can’t hasten the pace of a nationwide herd rebuild.
With herd sizes near the lowest since the early 1990s, the nation’s beef producers face the possibility of losing their No. 2 exporter position behind Brazil simply because they don’t have the stock available to service a global market as demand picks up steam up post-Covid-19.
The risks of that are growing as some farmers continue to send female cattle to the slaughterhouse instead of keeping them to expand herds. The latest official data show the ratio of female cattle processed as a proportion of total slaughter -- an indicator for whether a herd is in restocking phase -- at 48.2%, not enough to qualify for a technical rebuild, classified at 47% and under.