AuctionsPlus, Australia’s Digital Ag Market Place, experienced its busiest fiscal year ever in 2020-21, with a record volume of commercial cattle (814,758 head), sheep and lambs (4.43 million head) and goats (130,198 head) offered through the online platform. The online marketplace also registered significant growth across other categories including machinery and clearance sales, stud bull and sheep sales which all increased in 2020-21 – taking the gross merchandise sales for the year to $2.35 billion.
Click below to download the 2020-21 results.
As the epicenter of the business, the transaction of commercial cattle, sheep and lambs increased steadily for the past financial year, building on the growth registered through 2019-20. Underpinning the expansion for both species was the much-improved seasonal conditions for 2020-21, along with the very strong market, which enticed additional supplies online. Demand from buyers looking to rebuild drought depleted on-farm numbers facilitated the excellent average clearance rates for the year, with prices for potential breeding stock averaging 43% higher in the cattle market and 38% for the sheep market.
For sheep and lambs, there was a total of 4.43 million head offered online throughout the 2020-21 fiscal year, an increase of 10% from the previous year. Reflecting the ongoing recovery from the expansive drought in previous years, the number of sheep offered out of NSW (1.93 million head) for the past year was down 13% on the previous year. Making up for the NSW throughput decline were annual increases of 52% and 65% in Victoria (1.11 million head) and South Australia (800,838 head), respectively. South-West Victoria was easily the largest listing region for the year, up 58% annually, to just shy of 650,000 head.
Many sheep and lambs offered out of Victoria and South Australia throughout the year were sold into NSW, assisting rebuilding efforts and capitalizing on the higher prices on offer. The top purchasing region for sheep and lambs in 2020-21 was Central Western NSW, which increased purchases annually by 8%, to total 650,291 head. The Southern Tablelands of NSW registered the largest annual percentage increase of purchases, up 89%, to 171,122 head.
The record 814,758 head of cattle offered throughout 2020-21 was up 27% on 2019-20 and 93% up on the devastating drought year of 2018-19. Queensland offerings rose 49% year-on-year to 287,318 head, narrowing the gap significantly with NSW for the state with the largest offerings, as NSW recorded a 3% increase to list 301,615 head. However, Queensland sold a higher proportion of its cattle throughout the year, at 244,135 head, while NSW sold 242,403 head.
Indeed, for 2020-21 all state and territories recorded an increase in the number of cattle offered through AuctionsPlus, with Victoria (125,860 head) up 34% year-on-year, South Australia (58,778 head) up 95%, Western Australia (19,979 head) rising 53%, Tasmania (18,658 head) up 27% and the Northern Territory (2,550 head) jumping 9%. While the cattle and beef hub of South-West Queensland was both the largest buying and listing region for the year, the emphasis on herd rebuild had the next six largest purchasing regions all from NSW, as producers drove the market to record prices to secure cattle.
The growth in interest and activity for the national goat market spurred a 224% annual increase in the goat offering through AuctionsPlus in 2020-21, with NSW and Queensland the dominate states. Just like cattle and lambs, the average price return for goats in 2020-21 was also very favorable - making the most of the excellent seasonal conditions and growing demand for suitable breeding lines.
In correlation with the expansion of commercial livestock offerings, AuctionsPlus also registered a significant jump in stud cattle and stud sheep offerings throughout the year, helping producers to market stud stock as movement restrictions came into effect. In 2020-21, there was 364 stud cattle sales held online, and increase of 77% on the previous year, while stud sheep sales jumped 291%, to 297 sales.
The growth across other categories in 2020-21 continued to show the increasing confidence of listing through Australia’s’ Digital Ag Market Place, with significant growth for machinery and clearing sales, along with properties and wool. Acknowledging that the upheaval and disruptions caused by Covid-19 movement restrictions in the past year contributed to some of the growth in machinery and clearing sales, offerings increased 428% in 2020-21 – with a total of 317 individual sales undertaken.
Additionally, AuctionsPlus registered an 85% increase in the number of wool bales sold in 2020-21, at 34,557 bales, while 46 properties were offered throughout the year – up from 12 in the previous year. Sales throughout the year were also held for alpacas, camels, working dogs, horses, pigs, wine, and water.
Click below to download the 2020-21 results.
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