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Greener pastures for Smithton works

ANOTHER encouraging week with news that Greenhams are going to expand their Smithton works over the next twelve months with an extra 100 cattle per day being processed.

At the moment Greenham Tasmania processes 300 cattle per day and the managing director Peter Greenham says the upgrade will improve efficiency, create jobs and allow them to value add to the less popular cuts of meat. They are hoping to employ between 20 and 25 more people before July 2011.

This expansion should give producers a major confidence boost and although there may be a small herd at the moment, this decision will give producers confidence to start a re-build program. There was a bit more rain in most parts of the state during the past week and a pretty good frost on Sunday night to remind us that winter is on the way. I have been talking to producers throughout the state and they are telling stories of the best mushrooms for years and in many cases the best autumn grass for many years.

Many restockers and finishers are struggling to determine what should eat the grass. It takes more than $80/head (and in many cases more than $90/head) to buy any sort of store lamb and some are baulking at these prices. The finishers who have got forward lamb contracts for June and July are still happy with these levels and reports indicate that the exporters offering these forward contracts have been able to fill around three quarters of their targets which is encouraging and probably means that many producers are warming to forward contracts.

The other alternative is to buy store cattle, but some are struggling to pay the current weaner prices. Another sale this week and it will be interesting to see how well livestock sells.It will also be interesting to see what happens during the winter months if the exporters have bought most of their lambs on contract. I still believe that the domestic lamb market is very strong and will be able to keep prices at a a good level. The beef markets are going sideways apart from cows which are still selling very well. At Killafaddy on Tuesday there were 94 cows more than half were heavy weight and they sold from 125c/kg to 138c/kg. At Quoiba there were 53 cows and heavy cows sold for 125c/kg to 141c/kg with local butchers pushing at the top level.