PRIME stock prices may have peaked for this winter.
Recent market trends suggest the best money for young cattle and lambs may have already been paid.
In the case of lamb, seasonal shutdowns of export abattoirs and the anticipated early turn-off of new-season sucker lambs in NSW - expected to run during August rather than September - has prompted analysts from Meat and Livestock Australia to declare farmers may have witnessed the top saleyard performance for lamb.
"The peak prices for this winter appear to have been in June," MLA said last week.
The beef market is also displaying signs of a mid-winter slow-down, with a price-slip in the Eastern States Young Cattle Indicator to below 350c/kg carcass weight (after holding at this level for about the past month) viewed as evidence the traditional winter peak may have passed. The EYCI closed last week at 347.5c/kg.
In the case of beef, the usual culprits of subdued export demand from Asia and the US, combined with the bouncing Australian dollar, have been blamed for taking the shine off physical cattle prices.
The release of the latest live export figures have also started to shed light on the impact the Indonesian issue - whereby local authorities have clamped down on specifications and are only taking young cattle that weigh less than 350kg liveweight - is having on the supply of slaughter cattle in the north.
According to LiveCorp, the number of live cattle shipped to Indonesia during May fell 32 per cent or about 25,000 head.
Indonesia is northern Australia's biggest live export market, and up until the weight clampdown, was taking animals of all shapes and sizes, including cows and bullocks from the annual Northern Territory muster that are now being forced into meatworks.
The lack of a live export option is reflected in the June cattle slaughter figure for Queensland, with kill numbers for the month up by 13 per cent due to "processors having a good supply of cattle out of the northern, central and western districts," the MLA said.
The trend appears to be continuing, with the Queensland cattle kill for the first week of July totalling 78,193 head - about 10,000 head more than the same time last year.
There has been increased talk of "cheap boxed meat" from the north being put back on the domestic market, and in recent weeks The Weekly Times has seen full eye-fillet steaks, stamped with the AMH brand, on special at Victorian supermarkets for $13.99/kg.
There is certainly less beef being exported overseas due to a combination of lack-lustre demand from the global financial crisis and the impact of the higher, and in recent weeks, erratic Australian dollar.
For the financial year 2009-10, total beef exports declined 7 per cent to 898,960 tonnes shipped weight, according to figures just released by the Department of Agriculture Fisheries and Forestry.
The most affected market was the US, with sales of Australian beef to America falling 25 per cent to just over 210,000 tonnes - the lowest exports in more than a decade.
Japan, which is Australia's other key export market, also recorded a lack-lustre performance with beef exports down 4 per cent.
And while market analysts from MLA are painting a somewhat brighter picture for the current 2010-11 financial year, in the short-term there appears to be little joy from either of these vital export destinations.
