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lift capacity and manage the surge in supply. By comparison, Beef + Lamb NZ has forecast a 1.2% lift for the 2022-23 season NZ cattle slaughter to 2.69 million. This makes up just 41% of Australia’s forecast cattle slaughter for this year. Just like NZ, meat production in Australia has been impacted by labour shortages at processing plants. The Australian government has indicated that more skilled workers will be able to enter Australia this coming year to help alleviate these labour issues at a processing level. If labour shortages persist and processors are unable to increase capacity, cattle slaughter is projected to remain at last year’s level of 6 million head. That is only going to drop a bigger slaughter issue into the 2024 calendar year as cattle back up. On the flip side, if production can’t expand then exports will fail to push towards current expectations, delaying competing from building in export markets. MLA’s latest report also expects that the labour issues will have eased by 2025, bringing the cattle slaughter up to 8 million head, a 30% increase on 2022’s estimated slaughter figure of 6.02 million head.

A large proportion of Australia’s grass-fed beef heads to the United States, so it is a key market that both NZ and Australia compete for when it comes to beef exports. In recent years, Australia’s beef shipments to the US have been well down. In 2022, just 133,841t of Australian beef was shipped to the US, whereas between 2017-2019 shipments were over 230,000t.

This decline has been partly due to herd rebuilding but also because of a focus on supplying other markets, such as Japan and South Korea. With the end of La

Niña on the way, it’s hoped that the weather will improve, easing drought conditions in the US. This would allow the US to move back into a herd rebuilding phase sometime this year.

When this occurs, the US is likely to revert to being a net importer of beef following two years of high slaughter and beef production. Compared to the last major US drought in 2010-2012, significantly more beef cows and heifers have been slaughtered this time around. Therefore, US demand for beef from overseas markets is expected to remain strong for longer this time as herd rebuilding takes place.

With Australian beef production expected to ramp up this year, it’s going to mean a larger supply of beef on the market competing with NZ beef exports. If demand isn’t strong enough to absorb it, prices will be impacted. However, if the US can move into a herd rebuilding phase, it will help alleviate some of the pressure as Australian beef will be able to fill gaps in other markets such as South Korea and Japan that the US is unable to supply.