IN 27 years of selling farm supplies in Central Australia, Kevin Prior says he has never seen the kind of economic activity now occurring in response to improved cattle prices.
Mr Prior is the merchandise manager of Territory Rural McPherson in Alice Springs, and services a massive footprint of Central Australia’s cattle industry.
Never before seen cattle prices had triggered substantial reinvestment by local producers in new water tanks, pipes and pumps, fencing, cattle yards and replacement farm vehicles and even road trains.
Some producers who had not reinvested in their property for several years now had the confidence to do so, he said.
“I know one particular station where it has been probably over 10 years since it has been able to even think about spending money on fencing or on new water tanks of any sort,” Mr Prior said.
“But in the last 18 months they have bought six big water tanks.
“They have had a good season, prices have been good, and they have actually had surplus funds, so they are now able to put back into the station first time in more than 10 years.”
Mr Prior’s customers extend from near Tennant Creek in the north, half way down to Coober Pedy in the South, and east and west to the Queensland and Western Australian borders.
Remarkably, that vast region – some 1000km across in each direction – comprises only about 45 individual properties.
The average Central Australian cattle property is obviously many times larger than a typical cattle property, and with that scale comes significant maintenance and infrastructure requirements.
Where most merchandise outlets typically handle orders involving ute loads of stock, TRM Alice Springs tends to work in terms of truck loads of product.
“I come from South Australia, and in some places I know people might get excited if they sell four rolls of barbed wire and a roll of ringlock,” Mr Prior said. “Here it might be more like 10 or 20 pallets of barbed wire.”
A lot of producers were taking advantage of the good times to stockpile gear for the bad times, he said.
“In the good times they spend up, and maybe look at replacing vehicles, and obviously waters are important here
“But a lot of them will also buy extra gear and put it away. So when the lean times are there and cattle aren’t worth as much, they haven’t got as many to sell and they haven’t got money to spend, they will still have a small surplus of farm supplies to put aside for the dry times so they can still continue with maintaining their properties.”
One big shift that as occurred in recent years has been the move towards solar-powered pumps as the price of solar equipment had become more competitive and the technology improved.
“Solar energy is free and it is definitely a growing area,” he said.
- See this morning’s companion story, “Northern producers investing higher returns from cattle back into properties.”
The NTCA conference program kicks off in Alice Springs this morning. The association held its annual general meeting and welcome drinks yesterday afternoon. More reports on Beef Central next week.
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