The live cattle trade between northern Australia and Indonesia has been an amazingly successful international trade phenomenon for most of the last 30 years. The resilience of the business model has been demonstrated on two separate occasions when the trade suddenly halted. The first was the Asian financial collapse in 1997/98 followed by the…
The presence of Lumpy Skin Disease was officially confirmed in Riau province in east-central Sumatra on the 22nd of March 2022. This suggests that it could have been present a month or so earlier before it was formally identified and then notified to the OIE. The disease can spread rapidly and is transmitted by insect…
The textbooks state that Foot and Mouth disease (FMD) while highly infectious, has a low mortality rate in adult cattle (5% ish) with up to 20% in very young stock due to heart complications. While this statement is technically true, in the Indonesian experience at least, it is very misleading. The photos below show a…
Lumpy Skin Disease (LSD) infection in Indonesia was officially announced on the 3rd March 2022. Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) infection was officially declared on the 12th of April 2022. Since that time, 4 months for LSD and 3 months for FMD, action to control both diseases has been slow, uncoordinated, under-funded and generally ineffective. For both…
A. In my opinion the risk is extremely high over the next 1 to 6 months. The last case of Foot and Mouth Disease (FMD) in Australia was recorded in 1872. Since that time Australia has managed to remain free of the disease through a combination of effective biosecurity arrangements, strict animal quarantine and a…
The Balinese love their cattle and still keep about 600,000 head despite the fact that their role is now largely as a store of value as they are no longer used for draft purposes. Balinese beef consumption is modest. Animals can still be seen tethered out for grazing during the day all over Bali.
On February 25 the Jakarta press reported that the Indonesian Meat Slaughter and Traders Network (JAPPDI) members would be going on strike in the Greater Jakarta area from February 28 until March 4 in protest against the high price of cattle and beef supplies. As you can see from the photo above of the beef section (Daging Sapi)…
As Australian live cattle export numbers slowly decline, Mexico has taken over as the world’s largest live cattle exporter. In 2020, Mexican exporters sent over 1.1M head across the border into the USA whilst Australia exported a total of 1.05M head. The year-to-date numbers from Mexico are down in 2021, but not as much as…
One of the bonuses of working in the live export industry is that you get to meet some really interesting people from totally different cultures. Mohammad Gadafi Haji Mokti (Gadafi) is one of those. Gadafi began his career in the livestock and meat industries when he became a slaughterman in Brunei at the government owned…
Southeast Asian Beef Market Report 