Steady demand supports livestock values

New South Wales

The New South Wales livestock market is currently experiencing a dynamic period, with strong production numbers and fluctuating prices influenced by factors such as seasonal conditions, export demand and processing capacity. While red meat and livestock product industries have seen a rise in value, specific markets like beef and wool have seen price variations. As of June 2025, the livestock market showed a mix of strong performance in cattle and steady conditions for lamb.

Value Growth: The value of New South Wales livestock and livestock product industries has increased due to strong farmgate prices, especially for red meat and wool.

Production Increase: Production has generally risen across all livestock categories, with significant surges in beef and sheep meat.

Central West and Western NSW

The Central West and Western New South Wales livestock market is quite mixed, varying significantly depending on the amount and timing of rainfall. To the north and east of Dubbo, seasonal conditions have been sound for several months, with home-bred and trading stock on fodder crops performing well.

South of Dubbo, conditions are considerably drier, with only recent rain events germinating dry-sown crops. As a result, farmers in the south have been offloading livestock into a relatively volatile market, while those in the north have been able to purchase store stock for finishing on crops and pastures.

We’ve recently seen record prices for heavy lambs coming off crop and grain-finished, driven by strong export demand and low numbers of finished lambs. If the rain continues across the board, we anticipate market volatility will ease and confidence will return to drought-affected areas.

Southern New South Wales

As widely reported in the media recently, there were records broken for fat lamb prices across the Riverina selling centres in the mid-June. At the weekly Wagga sale on Thursday, 12 June, a pen of cross-bred lambs sold for $424 per head. At Griffith the following day, heavy lambs reached up to $431 per head, a new national record. This equates to over $11 per kilogram which is almost double the prices experienced during the livestock slump in late 2023.

Prices across all sheep classifications have risen significantly in recent weeks as the recent long spell of dry weather in Victoria, South Australia and southern New South Wales has seen many producers offload stock and take advantage of a very strong processing market rather than hand feed. MLA has reported that Australia exported a record amount of processed lambs in 2024 at around 360,000 tonnes and export numbers this year are tracking up two per cent. Experts say this increase in processing demand has followed an opening up of the China market for Australian processed lamb as well as US importers moving quickly to beat any potential tariff hikes under the Trump administration.

Cattle prices have remained steady despite the very dry autumn in the south mainly due to good demand from northern New South Wales and Queensland which experienced a very wet late summer and autumn. A series of record yardings at the Wagga selling centre in May and June (over 10,000 per week in some instances) hasn’t seen the reduction in prices those numbers would historically create. This demand has meant producers have not had to sell at typical drought prices to avoid long-term feeding of store stock. Recent rainfall amounts of 40 to 60 millimetres across most of the southern inland have been very welcome, and hopefully this is the start of a break in the weather patterns across southern New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.

From a rural property market perspective, grazing property sales across the southern regions have been very subdued in 2025. Dry seasonal conditions, high fodder costs, interest rate uncertainty and trade concerns appear to have combined to see both potential sellers and buyers sit out of the market. That said, when producers have decided to offload stock, the prices outlined earlier have certainly been welcome and there have been limited signs of any distressed vendors in the market at this stage.

Queensland Central Highland and Central West

Recent cattle sales in the Central Highland and Central West region of Queensland have seen a slight increase in prices for feeder weight cattle, with fat cattle prices remaining reasonably stable, due to strong supply. Current rates are still below quoted rates for store cattle in New South Wales. Feeder steers averaged 359 cents per kilogram in the last week of June, with heavy feeders at 311 cents per kilogram. Fat cattle prices are expected to lift from late July as supply tightens.

Good seasonal conditions throughout much of the region have put producers in a handy position pasture-wise, having the ability to buy in feeder stock, with some graziers taking on agistment as a lower-risk option. Drought conditions across much of New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia have seen increased demand for agistment across Queensland. While recent rain in some of the affected areas will benefit cropping operations, cold weather will prevent any bulk pasture growth until at least August.

Favourable cattle prices, good seasonal conditions and lower interest rates, with further cuts predicted, have provided a confidence boost to the grazing industry. This has resulted in a lift in property values across several recently transacted properties in the Central West of the state. Recent sales at Winton, Longreach, Barcaldine and Blackall have all showed new levels of value above previous records. We expect buyer enquiry to remain buoyant in the short term, although a large number of listings of northern breeder properties could see more vendors than buyers.

Victoria

Dry conditions over past years have contributed to few significant sales of grazing properties. Most producers have been reducing numbers and spending money feeding their breeding herd. The dry conditions have not been conducive to acquiring more land.

The record lamb prices seen in the past few months will give confidence to producers and may see farmers expand their lamb production. Sheep numbers have been steadily declining over the past 10 years, with many farmers switching to continuous cropping enterprises or away from sheep to cattle.

Southern Western Australia

In the grazing-focused regions of southern Western Australia, market conditions have softened over the past 24 months as a result of challenging seasonal conditions and elevated interest rates and input, fuel, energy and operating costs (i.e. transport and insurance). Although improved cattle prices throughout 2024 and into 2025, which have recovered from a significant correction in late 2023, have been positive, the impact of recent US trade policy changes on Australian export markets has introduced a layer of uncertainty into the market.

Transactional activity has largely been limited to the lower end of the market, up to $3 million, with real estate agents reporting it to be difficult to find a buyer in higher priced markets. In the traditional mixed farming regions of southern Western Australia, there has also been limited demand for properties with high grazing capability but limited cropping capability. This is due to the current uncertainty in the sheep industry due to the phase-out of live export, lack of information around industry transition and recent sheep price volatility, which is supported by a reported rapid increase in destocking numbers across Western Australia.