Far north abattoir strategy on table

QUEENSLAND will develop a business case to revive beef processing in the nation's far north.

QUEENSLAND will develop a business case to revive beef processing in the nation's far north and lessen producers' reliance on live exports.

State Agriculture and Food Minister Tim Mulherin said a line could be drawn across the continent from Townsville on the eastern seaboard to Perth and there was not an abattoir north of it. The state would test the commercial viability of establishing "strategically located" plants in the northern cattle country to slaughter and dress beef for market.

This would give producers more cost-effective options if there was trouble with a live export market, such as the shutdown of the Indonesian trade over cruelty revelations.

"Over-dependence on a single export market and the lack of competition for meat processing capacity in northern Australia are significant issues for the industry," Mr Mulherin said. "The recent suspension of the live export trade by the federal government has highlighted these problems and put more than 60,000 tonnes of beef a year at risk."

It's understood the study, to be conducted by the Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation, will look at various sites for remote-area abattoirs as well as different operating models.

Possible locations included Mount Isa, Charters Towers to the west of Townsville, ports in the Gulf of Carpentaria and Cairns. Consideration would be given to whether plants should operate as "satellites" to existing meatworks or seasonally, and access to transport links, markets and labour.

JBS Swift, the Brazilian-owned operator of one of the nation's biggest abattoir chains, blamed the temporary shutdown of its giant Beef City abattoir in Toowoomba in southeast Queensland on US trade tactics in Japan.

JBS Australia director John Berry said the Japanese had "been buying volumes of competitively priced US product" in preference to the prime beef exported from the Darling Downs city.

This had left no alternative but to suspend production for two weeks, forcing most of its 1100-strong workforce at Beef City to take leave, he told ABC radio.

The move had left the city, still recovering from January's disastrous floods, on tenterhooks.

Mr Berry said the company intended to restart production at Beef City in a month and the shutdown had nothing to do with the Indonesian live export trade.