Kimberley meat producers mull over long-term survival

Cattle industry sees the need for a joint strategy to shrug off dependence on live export.

Key operators in the Kimberley cattle industry need to come together and work out a strategy.

Hancock Prospecting Group is working to develop higher-quality beef products from its Kimberley cattle stations that could be sold through multiple market avenues in the future, beyond traditional live exports.

Hancock Agriculture chief executive Adam Giles said his group had been developing what it called “Kimberley composite cattle” with good breeding traits, with the aim of producing meat that could match the quality of its 2GR premium wagyu beef brand and branded restaurant products from its S. Kidman & Co stations further south.

Hancock’s Fossil Downs and Liveringa Stations in the Kimberley run about 50,000 head of branded cattle.

Giles said there was an opportunity for key operators in the Kimberley cattle industry to come together to formulate a strategy to move away from an historic dependence on the live export market.

High Australian cattle prices and outbreaks of disease in Indonesia, the Kimberley’s main export market, saw live exports slow dramatically last year.

A New Zealand ban on live exports and the Albanese government’s pledge to end live sheep exports has also spooked the industry.

“There has been a long history of cattle in the Kimberley and it has always generally been a commodity-based product that doesn’t have a firm home to go to. Some of it goes to live export if the prices are right, and if not it comes back into the domestic market,” Giles said.

“There is a key opportunity to find a more solid base for the future of cattle in the Kimberley. There is a need for a longer-term future strategy. At the moment everyone is a price taker, so there isn’t a lot of certainty.”

Adam Giles, Hancock Agriculture CEO

He said the key for the industry was taking a long-term view and thinking about different ways of operating.

“The industry needs to be less subject to the vagaries of the market. There are a few big operators, they could get their heads together and discuss a strategy.”

Last year the Kimberley Meat Company (KMC) reopened Northern WA’s only major abattoir near Broome, which is now undergoing a $35 million expansion in a bid to boost its processing capacity by 60 per cent.

The reopening has prompted key industry players to highlight the potential to develop the region into a global premium boxed beef player. One of those is the Pardoo Beef Corporation, which runs 22,000 head of pure wagyu and bos indicus cross cattle properties in the Kimberley and Pilbara.

But the company wants suitable feedlot facilities to be established in the region to produce the grain needed to feed and finish its cattle, an important element of wagyu production.