Country Today - October 15th

It's said you never know when a market has peaked until it starts to fall.

So what are the indicators for our beef market, which is enjoying something of an export boom at the moment? Global agri-trends analyst Simon Quilty thinks this could last for the next two to three years.

Simon, welcome back to Country Today.

So the dominating influence on our beef exports is the United States.

Why is the herd rebuild taking so long after the drought?

So Libby, it's a combination, I think, in America of ongoing dry conditions.

So El Nino would normally bring wet weather and they've had a delayed, you might say, effect there.

So continued dry conditions, it really comes down to the farmer and that ability or desire to retain females.

And it's yet to begin.

And all it points to is higher prices in America and And that's when you start to see, finally, retention of females.

And prices simply are not high enough at the moment.

And the extraordinary thing is that Donald Trump introduced no tariffs for imported beef for 300,000 tons, saying that that would help grow the great American beef herd And in actual fact, it did the complete opposite.

It's delayed it even further with more cheap imported Brazil beef.

So it's been delayed for many reasons.

And our friend Donald Trump is not helping.

And it's a double whammy, isn't it? Because it means there's the lack of beef for the US to export, giving us more opportunities.

It is, and that continues, Libby.

As we speak, I only in the last 24 hours have looked at those opportunities, and we can see that in Japan, for example, U.S. beef continues to fall dramatically across both Japan and Korea, of which Australia and America share 90%.

of market share.

So the less American beef, the more the demand for Australian.

And we've seen in the last few months, truly, US beef exports have diminished into both of those markets dramatically.

And I was horrified to read that Americans average three hamburgers a week per person.

Libby, that's a quiet week for them.

No, do not stand between an American and their hamburger.

And I guess what we've seen and we continue to see is this love affair with protein across America.