Much has been written in APlus News in the past month about northern NSW supply of cattle, underpinned by sustained dry to drought conditions encouraging record breaking levels of turnoff.
Aligning with timely rains in southern regions, broadly market prices have begun to rally since bottoming out in mid-April. The demand equation across all buyer types, but particularly restockers more recently, began intensifying early last week, driven by the forecast for favourable rains throughout most of the eastern Australia.
Sure enough, significant falls across northern NSW has seen a sharp rally in early markets trading this week. As Figure 1 below shows, the extent of the falls in parched northern NSW have even encouraged producers to commit to sewing oats or pasture mixes on the back of this rain.
The timing of this rain, particularly on the New England and the Northern Tablelands is important, albeit extremely late, if a sown pasture or oats crop can strike, demand from these areas may improve for light cattle as 2026 progresses. Long-range forecasts indicate a gradual, albeit slow recovery in the back half of this year for these areas, and further falls on a crop that’s establishing itself will mean demand from these areas for light cattle should also improve.
Northern NSW is traditionally a driving force in backgrounder markets for Bos Taurus type cattle. The influence it has from a demand perspective because of the numbers of cattle the region backgrounds at high stocking rates. Its role as a key demand market is important.
I’ll be watching the seasonal conditions for this region closely over the next few months, particularly soil moisture profiles and how rainfall eventuates. Its role in a Spring market could be substantially different than where it is now, and at a demand level, could prove extremely influential to late 2026 pricing on light cattle.
In line with the continued rise we’re seeing in spot transactions, the StoneX feeder cattle forward contract bid and offers have lifted also.
As per Figure 2 below, forward bids and offers are now higher than current spot prices, which means the market is in “carry”. This is a term used to describe forward markets when they are above spot prices.
Bids are rising 10c/kg liveweight per month out to November, to reach A$4.80/kg lwt, with offers in the back of the year hitting A$5.00/kg lwt. For producers, these markets provide you an indication of where participants are willing to transact, giving the ability for market volatility to potentially be mitigated with securing a forward contract via StoneX.
Widespread rain for broad areas of eastern Australia over the past week has inspired confidence at a producer level and shortened supply. These falls have arrived following continued recent rain through late April for the south.
How this has translated into a lift in forward contract bids and offers is the sense that southern feedlotters competing in northern markets throughout the dry season is going to add additional upside pressure to pricing. By way of more demand in a steady supply market.
Recent months have shown that volatility remains very prominent in Australian cattle markets, underpinned by market emotion, reaction to weather forecasts and supply and demand fundamentals.
Overall, the forward contracting market, via StoneX and the current prices demonstrate improving confidence and a higher level of engagement and participation compared to recent weeks prior to the rally.
Ripley Atkinson's experience in the red meat industry and current role at StoneX developing price risk management tools for Australia’s sheep and cattle sectors ensures he delivers unique, whole of supply chain insights and analysis across key factors such as prices, supply, production and the drivers of the sheep and cattle cycles.
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