THIS article may seem to be a major whinge, but it is really just a reflection of how export and processor buyers are feeling about the apparently poor efforts producers are putting into filling-out their National Vendor Declarations.
Apart from the buyers, auctioneers, clerks and general agency staff are feeling the pinch as they offer pen-after-pen of cattle, lambs or sheep that are ineligible for export to Russia, because of the lack of a simple declaration.
Unless you are a regular market-goer you would not realise the difference that a simple sentence written on the NVD can make.
Major processors who operate at our markets cannot and will not take any livestock that is NOT declared free of oxytetracycline and chlortetracycline. And keep in mind that these products have to be ingested or injected within 90 days of sale for slaughter, before the stock is rendered ineligible for export to Russia, so there are very few producers who would have to disbar themselves from this market.
I know that this is a relatively recent event, and that the notice given to livestock producers has been minimal, but for cattle vendors the omission of this simple notation can mean a significant difference. There are few-enough buyers at the markets now without offering cattle that, by leaving this notation off the declaration, disqualifies at least one of the major processors of redmeat in Australia from bidding on stock.
It is no exaggeration that by a simple omission, a 500-kilogram cow or a 450kg steer is usually devalued by as much as 5 cents a kg liveweight. It does not sound like much, but if you do the arithmetic it works out to $25/cow and $22.50/steer - a minor problem to most cattle producers, who of course are all wealthy and Millionaire's Row is full of commercial cattle growers.
Excuse the sarcasm - it is because I regularly hear producers moaning about the parlous state of their income and their constant desire to affect some change to add some security to their future. And it comes as something of a shock to find that some vendors that are so careless that they cost themselves money for such a simple exercise.
Sheep and lamb producers are equally culpable.
The frustration experienced by sellers and buyers is a palpable thing. Auctioneers announce that a pen of lambs are ineligible for export to Russia, and the frown on buyers' faces - as they march resolutely to the next pen- is something that vendors should experience first-hand.
Opportunists are laughing up their collective sleeves - those who have a bit of nous are buying cheap stock and keeping them the mandatory 90 days to clear any residue issues, and cashing-in on other producers' ignorance.
*Full report in Stock Journal, February 9 issue, 2012.
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