DISRUPTIONS to cattle movements and transporters continue despite it being nearly 12 months since Victoria’s fourth largest saleyard closed.

The Victoria Livestock Exchange held its last cattle sale at Pakenham in June 2024, after rising land taxes and rates made it unviable to continue.

Manager of Elders Delaney Livestock and Property, Anthony Delaney said it had forced cattle into other saleyards, putting them at capacity and making it harder for cattle to be booked.

“It’s had a major impact, and I think we’re only really now 12 months in seeing exactly how pivotal Pakenham or a Melbourne central market was to the industry,” he said.

“There’s now a lot of pressure on a lot of other selling centres and quite possibly categories of cattle are going to market for logistic reasons which may not be the best financial decision.

“Other centres are coping, but I would say just coping. And every country market that has a monthly sale, they are at capacity every month.

“The agents at Leongatha have split up so half the agents go one week and the other half on another, which helps them cope with the numbers, but it brings some disjointedness.”

He said more organisation and planning is required with the loss of VLE, as producers can no longer move cattle at the drop of a hat.

“I think we are starting to get through the rush of numbers down here, so we aren’t weeks and weeks out but it’s still going to be two to three weeks wait to move cattle,” he said.

“So we need to be organised and be thinking about cattle movements weeks in advance.”

Mr Delaney said usually when a selling centre closes, it’s because of consistent low numbers or if a new alternative facility has opened. However, that was not the case for Pakenham.

“We’ve never seen a major market, selling in excess of over 100,000 cattle a year, just shut with no obvious alternative of moving the sale from one centre to another,” he said.

“It’s left a major hole in our area, and I think the Victorian industry.”

Closure has put pressure on trucks

The closure of VLE has also put pressure on transporters as they are shifting the same amount of cattle in a more congested timeframe, given there are fewer sale days.

“It is stretching the transporters because the cattle need to be moved in a day rather than two days,” said Rob Hodge from Hodge Livestock Transport.

The closure of the truck wash that was part of the VLE had also had a major impact on transporters.

“Pakenham was very close to several abattoirs, which plenty of sheep and cattle go into, but now there is no truck wash on that side of town, we have to cross the city to wash out and then take it back through Melbourne,” said Mr Hodge.

“It’s adding an extra couple of hours just to wash out … and join the queue if they’re preparing for a sale the next day.”

Mr Hodge explained his company carts a large amount of stock from Tasmania into the meatworks on the eastern side of Melbourne and that trucks are required to wash out between each load from the mainland to Tasmania.

But the extra time it takes to travel through Melbourne to wash out means his trucks are doing less trips to Tasmania as they can’t always make it back in time for the return barge.

“Instead of doing three trips a week we are back to two,” he said.

Longwarry saleyards plan to open in 2027

The proponents behind the private venture to build new saleyards at Longwarry say it is full steam ahead, with capital raising in the next financial year.

“The yards will be called the West Gippsland Livestock Exchange, and we expect the build from start to finish will be in excessive of $30 million,” said Chairman of the Longwarry Saleyards, Greg Price.

“It’s become painfully obvious, in the 12 months since Pakenham closed, that a facility in West Gippsland close to processors is needed.

“When you look at the huge volumes of cattle and prime cattle that West Gippsland produces and the huge numbers we have seen at Koonwarra saleyards (Victorian Livestock Exchange at Leongatha), it is clear Koonwarra cannot fill the hole of Pakenham.”

Mr Price said the plan is for the West Gippsland Livestock Exchange to mirror Pakenham in size and will run very similarly.

“In a perfect world it would be nice to think that Longwarry could be up and running in two-and-a-half-years because it’s a big project to raise the capital and it’s probably a one-year build,” he said.

Mr Price confirmed the plans do include truck wash facilities.