AUSTRALIAN LAMB

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 4, 5 July 1939, Page 14

AUSTRALIAN LAMB

NEW SEASON'S PROSPECTS

The Australian lamb export trade opens next month. The "Pastoral Review," Sydney, believes that a few new season lambs will be treated in Western Australia early in July. In Victoria and New South Wales the lamb season prooer is not likely to open until August, and so far as South and Western Australia are concerned the works there will not be operating to anything like capacity much before September. A feature of the lambs lately slaughtered for export in Sydney has been excessive weight. Though better than usual in conformation and type, the carcasses, due to the abundance of feed, are abnormally heavy. Should there be a quota limitation next year heavy weights may prove a disadvantage rather than otherwise. Quotas are on a weight, not carcass, basis. Nothing definite is known as to what exporters will pay for lambs when the season opens, but it may be taken for granted that the rate will be lower than applied last year. For one thing current Smithfield quotations are about §d per lb below those ruling in JuneJuly, 1938, and oversea market reports do not hold out much hope of a great improvement. A depressing factor in immediate future price prospects in Great Britain is the large stocks of imported lamb and mutton in store in England and waiting shipment in New Zealand.

The same authority gives exports of lamb from Australia to the United Kingdom for the period July to May last as follows: —4,855,785 carcasses, compared with 5,148,359 carcasses for 1937-38. and 4,942,114 for 1936-37.