Australian beef prices to soar for two years

The price of Australian beef and cattle is set to soar for the next two years as the national herd hits a 20-year low. The latest quarterly update from Meat & Livestock Australia said the nation’s “severely depleted” cattle supply has plummeted by about 3 million heads to 26.2 million in the past three years, with herd numbers in western Queensland and New South Wales shrinking by up to 40 percent, the Australian Associated Press reported on Wednesday. Slaughter rates in the eastern states are also expected to drop from the record highs of two years ago to a predicted 120,000 in 2017, the same level as 2006 when the industry was trying to rebuild herd numbers.