‘Everyone is in sell mode’: Thousands of livestock shipped off Tassie

Farmers in Tasmania are selling-off livestock as they run out of feed and water as the desperate and dry conditions put pressure on freight channels.

Parts of Tasmania face the driest conditions recorded in a century, forcing a livestock sell-off and putting pressure on water and fodder resources and freight channels.

The dry weather has, in some cases, doubled the usual numbers of young cattle sold to mainland states compared to normal, with two recent major Powranna sales seeing more than half the yardings knocked down to mainland buyers as far afield as Tamworth, NSW.

TasFarmers president Ian Sauer said his state faced “a serious deficit of rain” and areas such as King Island had “the driest conditions in 100 years”.

South East Tasmania and central highlands also had “no spring, some late rain and nothing but dry weather since”, Mr Sauer said, adding the north coast was also incredibly dry.

“The situation is very desperate for many, very stressed farmers,” he said.

“For places like King Island, especially, and Flinders Island the issue is getting livestock off or feed on - there is very limited shipping to and from and some ridiculous laws about only operating in daylight hours. We need some exceptions to be made but our pleas are falling on deaf ears,” he said.

On Flinders Island, farmers faced the real risk of running out of water. Tasmania’s mainland also faced limited abattoir kill space, while shipments to the Port of Melbourne also had a raft of challenges, he said.

These included getting enough livestock trailers onto return journeys from the Port of Melbourne due to wharf “go slows”, roadworks at both ends and “sheer volumes of livestock going across causing bottlenecks”.

Farmers are calling on the Tasmanian government, to be elected in this weekend’s state election, for urgent access to early irrigation water releases for stock water and help with freight costs and logistics.

The federal government’s Freight Equalisation Scheme also needed urgent reviewing as Tasmanian farmers faced skyrocketing freight costs, Mr Sauer said.

Elders auctioneer Alan Perry said the backlog of cattle to be shipped to the mainland meant delays were occurring but most were being shipped within a week.

He said Tasmanian producers were very thankful the two major sales in the past fortnight at Powranna drew strong mainland interest. with more than half, around 4000 head, heading north.

Rates were 280-320c/kg for steers and heifers, 220-240c/kg but down to 150-180c/kg on very light heifers. These returns were $1/kg below last year’s returns, he said.

Confidence was low amongst Tasmanian producers, with the dry conditions very unusual on the normally reliable-rainfall islands. “Everyone is in sell mode,” he said.

Meanwhile, a shipping company plan’s to ship livestock on smaller and more cost-effective vessels from King Island to western Victoria’s Apollo Bay has been blocked by port operator, Colac Otway Shire Council.

Bass Straight Freight will argue its case to access the port in the Supreme Court in May.

BSF director David Harris said BSF hoped to ship cattle to Apollo Bay earlier this year before the port operator “banned” the company’s ships.

Colac Otway Shire Council CEO Anne Howard said council was responsible for the “safe operation of the port”.

She said the port manager requested from BSF “sufficient information” that livestock shipments could be managed in a way that was “safe and does not detrimentally impact other vessels, the environment, users or staff of the port” but she said the information was not provided.

The port manager issued a direction under the Marine Safety Act 2010, preventing BSF vessels from entering the port, she said.

This was challenged by BSF in the Supreme Court, but that challenge was dismissed. The matter returns to court in May.