To help provide some answers, Northern Tablelands Local Land Services has called on one of the best minds in the business, Simon Quilty, to deliver a series of workshops across the region, including one at the Inverell Rugby Club this Thursday. 

Simon is the managing director of MLX Pty Ltd, a company which specialises in risk management and brokering beef swaps, primarily between Australia and the US.

“We feel the Mapping Australia’s Livestock Future workshops will be highly beneficial to local producers,” said Lauren Wilson, Local Land Services Sustainable Agriculture team leader. 

“Simon is a leading expert in the field.  He has an impressive resume of working with key agribusinesses and operates a very active meat and livestock consultancy business, working closely with processors, exporters, farmers and importers in China and the US.”

Simon will concentrate on cattle and lamb prices in the Northern Tablelands area and how they compare to prices Australia wide, specifically, where the Northern Tablelands is positioned in the cattle price cycle.

Simon visited the region in July last year where he spoke to a number of groups at a time when beef was nearing the bottom of the last price cycle.

“As we have reached that low point, I will be talking at the upcoming workshops about where the new price cycle will be positioned over the next four years,” Simon said.

“I will be focusing on global beef prices which are the best indicator of where they will head. We could see cattle and lamb prices go to new record highs.”

Simon has extensively researched global demand and supply factors that will drive livestock prices higher over the next four years. These include factors that are likely to impact meat prices such as drought, global tariffs and African Swine Fever and how these will be reflected in Australia's livestock prices (both lamb and beef) in coming years.

Simon has been on an extensive trip through North America attending seminars and meeting all sectors of the US livestock industry over three weeks, discussing forward pricing, the US market and where domestic and global price trends are likely to head.

“The trip provided me with a number of insights, particularly in regards to African Swine Fever, the impact of which will change the protein balance sheet globally, such is the enormity of the problem in China,” said Simon. 

“It’s the number one issue talked about across the length and breadth of the US.  It’s the biggest issue affecting the meat industry in the past fifteen years,” he said.

“I’m very much looking forward to revisiting the region to look back on the forecasts that were made last year and to look to the future and the current trends.  I’m very interested in hearing feedback from people I have spoken to previously regarding the forecasts we put on the table last year, with a view to bringing hope into the room,” said Simon.

Workshops will be held from 6pm - 9pm at: