IN A sign of the times, the National Livestock Reporting Service has extended the bottom limits in its saleyards price reporting to account for the current dramatic livestock price plunge.

From today, NLRS is reporting saleyards cattle sold from 10c/kg liveweight in all market reports, adjusted from a 50c/kg liveweight lower-limit earlier, to align with current market conditions.

In a message to users, NLRS said the measure was taken to ensure the service “continued to deliver accurate market reporting and coverage of the market conditions.”

“We’re doing it to ensure we capture the entire market spectrum, including anything that might sell below 50c/kg,” an NLRS spokesman told Beef Central.

NLRS made a similar adjustment to sheep price reporting last month, moving from a minimum price of $10/head to $1/head.

Widening the parameters in this way to ensure that all sheep sales are accurately recorded has had no material impact on sheep market indicator reporting, because sheep numbers sold below $10 a head have been relatively few. But nevertheless the move more accurately reflects current prices being paid for some sheep.

There have been several sales of cattle through saleyards below 50c/kg over the past seven days, including small lumbers of ‘pastoral zone’ fat score 2 vealer heifers sold through in Western Australia’s Muchea yards (reported inaccurately as a default at the lower limit of ‘50c/kg’ but actually selling for 40c, because the parameters did not extend low enough at that point), and poor D1 cows (described as ‘stunted’ by one onlooker) at Warwick sale in southern Queensland at 39c/kg this morning.

Other sales held so far this week, including Camperdown, Packenham and Mortlake had no sales below 50c/kg.

Because of low volumes, NLRS does not anticipate any significant impact on cattle market indicators due to the adjusted minimum price limit.

• Click here to view the corresponding report on Sheep Central published last month, detailing NLRS’s drop in minimum price from $10/head to $1/head.