April 2018

Phone: 07 4697 3344 • Fax 07 4697 3532
www.stockyardindustries.com
Vol 22. No. 4 April 2018 Australian Pork Newspaper PO Box 387 Cleveland 4163 Phone (07) 3286 1833 Fax (07) 3821 2637 Email ben@porknews.com.au
Happy Roseworthy course attendees celebrated a big learning curve.
Pork CRC on course at Roseworthy
DISAPPOINTINGLY, pig prices have re- mained flat or in many cases have further re- duced since the new year, putting a lot of pressure on producer profitability.
Added to this, dry conditions and export demand have led to in- creased grain costs, particularly in some geographies, notably Queensland.
The reasons for price softness are pretty clear. For many months, and confirmed in the latest January ABS statistics, pig slaughter number growth has been be- tween 3 and 4 percent
year-on-year.
Due to larger carcass
sizes, this has translated into annual pigmeat pro- duction growth of be- tween 5 and 6 percent.
Table 1 tells the story clearly – MAT refers to moving annual total and SW refers to shipped weight.
Indications from pro- cessors suggest pig slaughter numbers have remained strong for both February and March – these will eventually be confirmed or otherwise through more official statistics.
Given the resources
Point of View
by ANDREW SPENCER CEO
If this leads to higher volumes of Australian beef seeking a home on the domestic market, we’ll likely see beef prices at retail soften, possibly putting more pressure on our pork market share.
I’m sure these subjects and many more will be up for discussion at the forthcoming Pan Pacific Pork Expo, taking place on May 30 and 31 at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre.
If you haven’t already registered, I encour- ageyoutodosoand if you’re a levy-paying pork producer, you can take advantage of the assistance packages on offer to help with travel and accommodation costs.
As always, we’ll be holding an APL Board meeting and Delegates’ Forum in advance of PPPE to talk about in- dustry-relevant issues.
Pig prices and profit- ability will of course be high on the agenda – what we can do to create more demand, how to reduce production costs and how to better man- age risk.
I’m looking forward to catching up with you all on the Gold Coast.
Imports
PORK CRC’s ‘The Sci- ence and Practice of Pig Production’ 2018 course at Roseworthy, South Australia was attended by 44 people, compris- ing 18 University of Ad- elaide undergraduates and 22 industry repre- sentatives from South Australia, Western Aus- tralia and NSW, plus four participants from New Zealand.
The course was co-or- dinated and taught by Dr Will van Wettere (senior lecturer, pigs at the Uni- versity of Adelaide), with Bec Smith (Pork CRC) providing essential organ- isational assistance.
The course was de- signed to provide partici- pants a strong understand- ing of all aspects of pig production, from concep- tion through to slaughter and it encompassed all the management required in between.
To this end, topics cov- ered included: reproduc- tive physiology, breeding herd management, efflu- ent management, nutri- tion, health, meat qual- ity, quality assurance and marketing.
A range of guest speak- ers were involved in the course and their contribu- tions were gratefully ac- knowledged for their con- tinued support and valu- able input into the course.
They included Dr Kate Plush and Dr Sarah Med- hurst, SunPork Farms South; Dr Stephan Tait, University of Queensland;
Prof Frank Dunshea, Uni- versity of Melbourne; and Tony Edwards and his ACE Livestock Consult- ing team.
The continued contribu- tion of Australian Pork Limited to the course, in the form of Steve Miller and Peter Smith to explain APIQP, quality assurance
and marketing, was again a highlight.
The assistance of Gra- ham Reu (Sabor) and Big River Pork for allowing the students to visit their facilities and learn from them was also very grate- fully received, as was the ongoing support for the course by Pork CRC.
Australian Pork Lim- ited has at its disposal for marketing our pork, these volume growth levels are just too high for us to be able to keep up with in demand growth.
Growth in pork con- sumption, however, does remain very healthy – perhaps around the 3 to 5 per- cent mark overall and higher at retail.
We are squeezing eve- ry bit of extra demand out of our resources as best we can but those resources are finite.
Our efforts at sur- veying production in- tentions indicate pro- duction growth will likely diminish and numbers will likely flatten out towards the
Domestic
middle of this year. The unknowns remain as to exactly when this will happen, to what extent volume increases reduce and what impact it will have on price in terms of numbers and
timing.
Some global dynamics
are at play here too.
We now know the in- tention of the Chinese authorities to place a tariff of 25 percent on US pork imports in re- taliation to US tariffs on
Chinese products.
On top of this, beef
production in the US is growing at a very strong level and they are likely to take a higher global market share, maybe competing more heav- ily with Australian beef exports.
Exports
Steve Miller, APL, Will van Wettere, University of Adelaide, Charles Rikard-Bell, Pork CRC and Peter Smith, APL.
Rhomel Tabunar, Patao Farms, New Zealand, Charles Rikard-Bell and Will van Wettere.
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Stockyard Industries 54 King Street,
Clifton QLD 4361
07 4697 3344
www.stockyardindustries.com
sales@stockyardindustries.com
Prices, protectionism and the Pan Pacific
Month
Pigmeat (000s) (Tonnes)
Volume (Tonnes SW)
Value $AUD (Million)
Volume (Tonnes SW)
Value $AUD (Million)
Slaughter
MATJan-18 5306 410,171 41,028 144 166,537 689 MATJan-17 5119 389,814 36,346 134.4 166,215 632.6 %Change 3.7 5.2 12.9 7.1 0.2 8.9
Jan-18 434
Jan-17 402
%Change 7.8 7.2 14.8 8.7 -4.1 2.1
32,808 3333 11.4 30,609 2904 10.5
16,044 65.7 16,734 64.3
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