Agmates

ABA Chair Brad Bellinger (pictured) said “the indicative price paid to producers on the east coast has dropped 18 per cent, but prices in the supermarkets are unchanged, or have gone up.

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The retail price for beef has actually risen more in Australia than any other country in the world in the last 11 years.Beef prices should be dropping substantially and it’s ridiculous when you hear comments made by the Prime Minister that due to the drought the price of food will increase”

ABA is not the only one that believes there is something very “fishy” about meat prices. This is what Futuris (Elders & AAco) chief executive Les Wozniczka told share holders at their annual general meeting last Friday:

“Given the price rises we have seen globally in input costs such as fuel, energy, fertiliser, labour and interest rates, we are expecting a major readjustment in food prices, We have already seen significant increases in commodity prices for dairy products and grains, but we have yet to see the flow-on effects to livestock, meat products, and eggs.

Prepare yourselves for some serious inflation in your cost of living, because, globally, we are seeing pricing power starting to return to farmers.”

But Mr Wozniczka also said that unless farmers could recover input costs via higher prices, more would refuse to produce, or convert, to alternative products such as ethanol and biofuel.

New South Wales Beef Producer John Carter (pictured) in his last Straight Talking with the calculation of his unique Global Cattle Index - ask’s the question - Why are Australian Cattle Prices falling when there is a global shortage?

 In this article John points out that Australian cattle producers are only recieving 53% of the price for Cattle that our American counter parts are receiving, even though they are suffering under drought and high grain prices just like Australian producers. You can read Johns full article by Clicking Here.

A report just released by the Agri Benchmark’s international information net quotes a study by the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil which finds that since January of this year Brazilian cattle producers costs had increased by 7.5% but had been offset by an over the hooks price increase of 16.3%.

Intersting that Brazilian beef prices paid to their Cattle producers had increased by 16% whilst Australian cattle producers have suffered not only increased production costs but copped a decrease in prices in the order of 18% for the same period.

No wonder Australia’s only independant cattle producing association ABA is demanding a National Inquiry. A clue to the answer might lie in the comment at the bottom of John Carter’s article made by Missouri USA Cattleman Joel Gill (yes we have Agmates in the US). Have a look at it by clicking here.

Another clue as to what the problem is can be found in the Cattle Council of Australia’s (CCA) Bill Bray “fireside” chat that he masquades as a column in last weeks Queensland Country Life 25/10/07 Page 10.

I’ve given you the page because you probably missed it or died of boredom trying to get through it. Honestly reading it is about as exciting as been mauled by a dead sheep.

According to Bill the CCA is doing a magnificent job of looking after the “15million Australian Beef Cattle he and his peak body represent through the State Farming organizations”. (His words - not mine).

Anyway not everybody agrees with Bill - Rob Wass a major cattle producer in New South Wales certainly does not and tells you why. You can read Robs reply to Bill’s little “fireside” chat by clicking here.

Rob sent Agmates his reply because he believes he’s got as much chance of having it published in the Queensland Country Life as drought breaking rain falling across Australia this weekend (he’s not holding his breath).

P.S. I don’t pretend there is any love lost between Agmates and the QCL. They have “black balled’ Agmates from advertising in their publication. The reason I was given was that Agmates is an online News and Advertising medium and they are a newspaper and they won’t promote their competition (even though the only promotion Agmates got was paid advertising.)

This happened 2 months ago and we are still here. That’s why we rely on you our faithful readers to tell all of your friends about us. Do your bit to preserve freedom of speech - tell a friend and contribute by way of comments or articles and advertising on the site.

There’s a lot more to run with this story ……what are your thoughts…..?

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