Click on image for a larger view.

WITH cattle markets continuing to push to stratospheric levels during July, it’s no surprise that Australia remains well on top in the ‘international league table’ that represents live cattle and carcase beef prices around the world.

During a recent market update webinar, MLA analyst Stuart Bull presented the table above, plotting Australian finished cattle prices against those of other major beef exporting nations, measured in A$ terms.

As they have since late last year, Australia continues to top the list, remaining about A50c/kg liveweight ahead of second-placed US, and well over a dollar a kilo above third-placed Uruguay.

Apart from a short period back in 2016 when Australia topped world prices briefly (clearly influenced as much by a sudden and dramatic drop in US prices at the time, as a rise in our own), this is the first time in history that Australian cattle prices have been the most expensive in international terms.

Cattle shortage driven by continental scale drought and subsequent herd liquidation, combined with strong international beef demand and this year’s strong seasonal conditions has driven the recent sharp rise in Australian cattle prices.

The result is a challenging trading environment for Australian beef exporters, in terms of export beef price competitiveness.

“Australia continues to outpace other key exporter markets in terms of our cattle pricing,” Mr Bull told last week’s webinar.

“But what we are seeing now is generally low supply across global beef exporting nations – it’s not just us facing supply challenges,” he said.

As the graph shows, most export competitor countries have shown a rising cattle price trend this year.

“It’s being seen in South America, and to a degree, the US,” Mr Bull said. “Things are aligning a little more with what’s happening here in Australia, price wise. But having said that, Australia is still easily the most expensive of the five countries in the comparison.”

Similar result from European assessment

As always, any international cattle/beef price comparison can change, depending on which currency is chosen as the benchmark, currency cross-rates between that currency and others, and which cattle market category is chosen for the comparison.

For example the graph published below, created by the European Commission’s Agriculture and Rural Development division is calculated in Euros, instead of Australian dollars – and is based on carcase prices instead of finished steer prices – but the trend remains reasonably consistent.

The blue line on the graph below represents carcase prices in the EU, while the previous MLA graph plots only the five significant beef exporters – the US, Australia, Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay.

The European graph is now about six week old, which if anything, if brought up to date would show Australian prices pulling even further ahead. While an incomplete graph plot line is included for Great Britain (yellow line), Great Britain is not a significant beef exporter, in a global context.

The European graph suggests Australian beef carcases (as at mid-June) were around 8pc higher in value than equivalent carcase prices in the EU when measured in Euros, 17pc higher than the US, around 25pc higher than South American prices, and 28pc higher than New Zealand.

The sharp rise in prices plotted for Uruguay (orange line) in the graph back in late 2019-early 2020 is linked more to currency movement against the Euro, rather than movement in carcase value.