AuctionsPlus commercial cattle offerings for the first quarter of 2023 (1st January – 31st March) totalled 157,350 head – a 20% fall from the previous quarter and a 30% fall from the same quarter in 2022. The market is in a very different situation to the historical highs in early 2022, the maturation of herd rebuilding and subsequent decline in prices has reduced the incentives to sell quality cattle online, with producers choosing to hold breeding stock on-farm instead.
Key Points
Southern Queensland listings fell 31% but held onto the lead position with 21,630 head.
Western Queensland registered largest fall in listings and highest clearance rate.
Listings and clearance rates declined due to a significantly weaker market.
The EYCI started the quarter at around 780c and slid 100c over the quarter to finish at 680c/kg cwt at the end of March. Clearance rates lowered as a result, averaging 59% compared to 73% last quarter.
Steer numbers accounted for 33% of the cattle offered across the quarter, while heifers and breeding stock accounted for 24% and 41% respectively, while mixed sex lines and bulls made up the remaining 1%. Since last quarter, the proportion of breeding stock has increased in place of heifers due to higher retention of heifers and the seasonality of PTIC breeding lines peaking in March.
Figure 1: AuctionsPlus quarterly cattle clearance rates and throughput volume, 2017 – Q1 2023
The top ten regions for the quarter in Table 1 outline that Southern Queensland’s lead has narrowed significantly. While it remained the top throughput region for the fourth consecutive quarter with 21,630 head, listings for the region were down 31% from the previous quarter and down 23% from the same quarter last year.
The NSW Northwest Slopes and Plains maintained second place with 18,142 head – a 4% increase from the previous quarter, however, a 41% decline from the same quarter of last year. The NSW Northern Tablelands jumped from seventh to third with 17,801 head – a massive 40% increase from the last quarter. The surge in listings led to a relatively subdued clearance rate of 52% compared to 65% for the Northwest Slopes and Plains and 62% for Southern Queensland.
Across the top ten listing regions, the NSW Hunter recorded the only year-on-year increase in listings – up 58% from Q1 2022 and up 17% from last quarter while also achieving an above average clearance rate for the quarter of 63%.
The largest quarterly change was registered in Western Queensland with a 51% fall in the number of head listed from Q4 2022 and 40% lower than Q1 2022. The region also registered the highest clearance rate of 82%, suggesting that the drop in numbers was due to greater retention of stock on farm. With favourable soil moisture and pasture growth coupled with unfavourable prices influencing continued restocking intentions in the region.
Drier conditions through January and February and an increase in the supply of slaughter cattle marked the end of nation-wide herd rebuilding and saw very cautious buying behaviour in the market. This combined with lower listings across most regions has flowed through to lower purchases. Table 2 outlines that the top nine purchasing regions all experienced declines from the same quarter of last year, while Lower Southeast SA was the lone region recording a yearly increase in the number of head purchased.
Southern Queensland and the NSW Northwest Slopes and Plains again took out first and second place with 24,513 and 12,895 head purchased respectively. The NSW Central West narrowly slipped to third place with 12,550 head purchased – down 51% from last year.
The proportion of AuctionsPlus listings in Queensland has slipped from 30% in Q4 2022 to 22% in Q1 2023 (Figure 2). While all other states have increased their proportion of total listings slightly, NSW contributing the majority of listings with 51%, Victoria accounting for 14%, SA making up 8%, Tasmania offering 3% and WA with 1%.