The Country 14/08/25: Jen Corkran talks to Jamie Mackay

We catch up with Rabobank’s Ag Analyst in Wagin where she’s participating in the bank’s Western Australia Sheep and Wool Tour. We also cast our eye over the August Agribusiness Monthly Report and the excellent prospects for beef and sheepmeats.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
She is a senior animal protein analyst with Rabobank. Her
name is Jen Corcoran, and some people get all the
best jobs. She's in Western Australia at the moment on
the Rabobank Western Australia Sheep and will tour now, Jen,
I've spent six hours in Perth, never left the airport,
but I'm going there in October to support the All

(00:22):
Blacks and play some bad golf. Had you been to
Western Australia before.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Hi, Jamie, You're very lucky to be here, and no,
this is my first time over to WA and yeah,
really wonderful to be here with some clients from across
go New Zealand and Australia. And we've been looking at
some great sheep farms around the sort of great southern
area as well as sort of diving into stuff like
the live export phase out and all sorts of things

(00:49):
affecting farms over here.

Speaker 1 (00:50):
I think today we find you in a place called Wagean.
And I went to Lincoln with three lads from Western
Australia and I think one of them, my memory was
from that area I thought was mainly cropping.

Speaker 2 (01:01):
Yeah, so mixed sort of a lot of mixed cropping
and big farms Jamie. So you know, we've visited properties
from anywhere between two and a half thousand hit deers
and you know, nine thousand hip DEAs in size, so
big farms, and you know, the properties we've been on
have been sort of seventy or eighty percent cropping, so wheat, barley, canola,

(01:22):
increasingly a lot of oats in this region too. But
sheeper obviously integrated and is part of the cropping rotation,
and they play a very crucial role because not only
has it you know, historically been good and come from
well lots of marinos, but they play a role in
that pasta rotation around big yume based pastures for three
or four years in returning that caven to the soil.

(01:42):
And yeah, so they've been a wonderful part of the
farm systems, but they are small compared to that cropping part.

Speaker 1 (01:47):
You would have to be a fairly hardy sheep to
survive in Western Australia. They get desert like rainfall numbers.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, Mediterranean climate. So essentially, you know, we talk about
the lack of rain sometimes in summer in New but
dry from September sometimes earlier right through itutul they call
it the break, which might happen and if they're lucky, April,
but often may and then it's only sort of through
the period that we're now that they'll get that small

(02:14):
amount of rainfall that they do get. So those crops
are so in and sort of via April through that
all in period. And yeah, it looks green enough, you know,
driving around at the moment, but we can only imagine
it's the dust bowl through that summer period. And we've
heard as such. You know, so animals are often getting
you know, these sheep are often getting fit out on
feed lots and by hand through that period.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Well, let's talk about feed lots. That's where some animals
go before they hop on a boat for live export.
Of course that's coming to an end, is.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
It not, yes, Jamie. So that was really interesting. So
we spent day one close to Perth and we really
dive deeply into understanding that phase out of the live
export and what that means for producers here in terms
of that shifting dynamic and what they're going to do
with their sheep farm systems in the future. So the
long and short of it is that you know, in
twenty twenty two, sheep numbers in WA were about twelve

(03:04):
point four million, and they estimate that we might bet
aground between eight and nine here million now, so the
numbers arelread dropping quite rapidly because of this phase out.
So we went to Peel feed lots basically the last
stop before they jump on these ships to the Middle East,
and heard from the people here and it's really quite
a sad story because what the Western Australia industry has

(03:25):
done in terms of you know, welfare and working with
his middlesting countries, in terms of getting these animals across
the sea and working with people over there that are
that are going to use the animals afterwards. They've done
great things and the fact that it's being phased out
is really unfortunate in the fact that a lot of
farming systems rely on the fact that they can easily

(03:45):
get rid of animals on a ship and it is
actually at a very high and weal welfare standard.

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Okay, let's just finish on the Rabobank august Agribusiness Monthly.
You co authored this one. You probably did the beef
and sheep meat compartments or sections of this report. Very positive, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Thanks and looking good, an't i Danny, And it's nice
to see that. We expect sheep meat prices in particular
to remain strong over the next twelve or possibly eighteen
months because that global demand is strong, so that European
Union market is really driving things for us, especially for land.
And we also know that the supply of sheep meat

(04:28):
and China at the moment is not as high as
it's been, so although we know consumer sentiment has not
improved much in China yet, we are seeing sort of
a little bit of an uptick and interest for volumes
from China. So if we get China coming back to
play with some bit of money, Sishi run Mutton and
law of value. But you know, we're expecting to see
the United Kingdom and the European Union continue to take

(04:51):
good volumes and pay for it. So that's going to
drive prices for us. And that ten dollars sort of
forget that we joked about probably six months ago, Jamie
is very much reality now.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
Absolutely well. And I mentioned this to Amma Higgins from
Rabobank on last week's show, The Holy Grail. If you
want the Trifector ten dollar milk price, we're there. Ten
dollars lamb price were there? What about the ten dollar
beef price? Just quickly?

Speaker 2 (05:15):
Oh gosh, Jamie. Yes, well, beef had some good legs
for over twelve months now and it's looking really strong.
You know, those Brazilian volumes that have been going into
the States, they're going to drop now with your big tariff.
But yeah, that there is going to be strong demand
you know, for that commodity product room into the States
over the next few years while they rebuild their head.

(05:37):
So you know, I don't know whether we'll get to
ten dollars, but we're certainly lea stitt in pretty where
we are, and it's actually not going down yet, so
I think we'll steady off similar to where we're at
now for a little while. But that is just not
enough global beef and we've got a product that one
of our key markets really needs for the next few years.
So we're in good speed.

Speaker 1 (05:57):
Jen Corchoran safe travels home from Perth.

Speaker 2 (06:00):
Thanks. I need