Livestock Interview - James Wilson
You've just finished up at a big weekly sheep market at Bendigo, are you seeing any new season lambs come through yet?
We had a yarding of 26,000 there today, of which about 13,000 of them were sheep. We are definitely starting to see bigger numbers of surplus sheep stock, and that end of the market held up strong. Our suckers are coming on slowly, they've come through a pretty cold, tough winter and in a lot of cases we are probably still three to four weeks away from seeing any serious numbers coming to the market - and a lot has got to go right with the weather for those lambs to come on in good numbers and quality. Some of our counterparts from north central Victoria and the Mallee areas are starting to send a few lambs down, and also the Riverina and central New South Wales areas.
And how do you think the market's going to play out for new season lambs?
It's going to be one of those springs where we're probably going to be a lot more concerned about the product and presenting the article right, versus the market. I'm not too concerned going forward for new season lambs, if you can present them in a killable trade weight or better - you're going to get reasonably well rewarded. As we get further south into some of these later, drier areas, the lambs are going to come on slow and quality is going to be an issue. The heavy sheep market might stay where it is, or even pull away a little bit from some of the trade and light sheep, as there will be more of those as we get to the end of the season, and some of these bigger northern exporters are going to have to pay for heavy sheep if they want them.
It's been fairly up and down for livestock producers over the past 12 months, what have been the biggest challenges in your region?
Luckily enough, season wise in central Victoria it has been reasonably strong. But obviously the most challenging part has been in the market - we just didn't know what to expect week on week. So it has been trying to lift producers above the negativity of the market and what we've seen in the last 12 months, to see the end goal and the bigger picture of which the outlook for the whole red meat industry is very good.
And how are things shaping up season wise now as we head into spring?
We are starting to look for a bit of rain now, the season is on a knife's edge in some parts given the last fortnight. Places to the south definitely received some good rains in the last fortnight, but it's that time of year we just need to bank as much moisture as we can to prolong our season.
What opportunities might the remainder of spring bring your clients?
We trade a number of store lambs for some of our northern clients, and this time last year we were costing much less than they are now, so that store lamb price is something we are going to have to keep a close eye on. The margins are tight enough at the moment, But there's definitely going to be opportunities once we get deeper into spring, and I think there's going to be more of an appetite for people to feed lambs on into the new year.
What is the most exciting thing for you working in your role at the moment?
It's definitely client satisfaction - it's been reasonably tough the last 12 months, given market conditions, but achieving the result for the client is what we pull on the shirt for. What excites me at the moment is the heightened demand for small stock locally, we are seeing forward contracts and both supermarkets are out looking for lamb at the moment. That gives us a lot more marketing opportunities for clients and you can put more options in front of them with a lot more reward for effort. We are going to see hopefully a much stronger market this spring, with clients getting rewarded for what is a big effort running livestock.
Interview took place in September 2024