Month: October 2020

The stars are aligned for the beef industry at the moment, with beef prices are at or near the 100th percentile of long-term prices and interest rates at historical lows. If the forecasted La Nina eventuates, then we will have the trifecta! Our analysis has found that, for average producers, the majority of long-term profits are made in those periods when the stars are aligned. Top performers also do well during these years, but are less reliant on these years for their long-term performance. A challenge in periods of fluctuating prices, such as we have seen recently, is determining what prices to use in forward budgeting. We could optimistically say that the current prices are the ‘new normal’ and here to stay, as may have been assumed in the late 80’s,…

For some years now, Ian McLean and I have been advocating the need for concurrent financial and environmental sustainability in Australian agriculture.Our focus has been primarily on rangeland pastoralism because that is our main field of expertise, but that is not to diminish the importance of the principles being extended to all areas of broadacre agricultural production, grazing and cropping.  With the benefit of hindsight, I don't think we have done a good enough job to explain the thinking and logic that support this position.The literature on sustainability theory describes five areas needing to be addressed in agriculture if overall sustainability is the goal. Financial and environmental are arguably the two most important as they are predominantly under the control of the producer.The main issue here is that both of them have…