Meat & Livestock Australia is calling on grassfed cattle producers for responses to its annual Beef Producer Intentions Survey, being staged over the next month from November 4.

The short survey, held for the first time late last year, will continue to provide visibility and transparency of the industry’s shape and direction.

The need for the survey has been heightened, following recent changes to the Federal Government’s data collection on the Australian cattle industry.

Strong participation in the survey will help improve the validity of the statistics produced.

Recently, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the top-line national figures for the 2024 financial year. The figures have traditionally included data on meat and dairy cattle herd population.

However as the ABS has decided that it will be modernising the collection of agricultural statistics to reduce the burden on producers, statistics on the sex and age breakdown of Australian cattle herds will no longer be included.

Following these changes to the data collected by the ABS on cattle, as well as an additional announcement that the Rural Environmental & Agricultural Commodities Survey (REACS) will be discontinued, MLA has made the decision to utilise the Beef Producers Intentions Survey (BPIS) to replace the ABS in providing valuable data to Australian beef industry.

The beef survey joins a long-running similar survey of sheepmeat producers, which attracts strong industry participation each year.

Survey breakdown

The BPIS has been considered an essential tool for industry, highlighting current domestic and international market opportunities and changes, as well as providing updates on industry wide changes in the herd.

The November wave of the survey aims to provides an overview on the herd profile, producer sentiment, breed demographics, producer intentions, and sales to date.

Previously, this wave of the survey has covered about ten percent of producers across the country, or about 4500 respondents.

However, as more producers participate in the survey, the greater the benefits the survey results can provide to industry.

The April wave, which will be the first to take place in 2025, aims to gain visibility on producer decisions regarding spring and autumn calving periods.

As part of the April survey, MLA aims to cover factors that impact producer decision making, including branding percentage, age of spring calving, turn-off weight and actual vs expected sales.

In July, MLA follows up with respondents for the Producer Update survey. The data collected ranges from the following topics:

• producer intentions over the last 12 months
• planned autumn calf drop
• forecasted sales over the first half of the year (January to June).

Since the survey’s initial launch, it has steadily increased in value thanks to the growing coverage and participation from grassfed cattle producers.

Through taking part in the BPIS as a beef cattle enterprise, participating producers will continue to allow for huge increased value and quality of information – improving transparency in the industry.

Beef producers can complete the survey here