NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
February 2012	4 April 2012
March 2012	9 May 2012
April 2012	4 June 2012

INTRODUCTION

This publication presents statistics on livestock slaughterings and meat production. These statistics are based on a monthly collection from abattoirs and other major slaughtering establishments and include estimates of animals slaughtered by country butchers and other small slaughtering establishments. More detailed information on this series can be obtained by referring to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) quarterly publication, Livestock Products, Australia (cat. no. 7215.0).

Additional time series spreadsheets containing state/territory and national data are available from the Downloads tab for this publication. These spreadsheets contain original, seasonally adjusted and trend estimates for slaughtering and meat production for bulls, bullocks and steers, cows and heifers, cattle (excluding calves), calves, sheep, lambs and pigs.



INQUIRIES

For further information about these and related statistics, contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070.


SUMMARY COMMENTARY


LIVESTOCK

In January 2012 the trend estimate for cattle slaughterings increased by 1% to 623 thousand.

Calf slaughterings increased by 1% to 58 thousand in January 2012, but were down 10% from January 2011.

In January 2012, the trend estimate for sheep slaughterings increased by 1% to 450 thousand.

Lamb slaughterings remained steady at 1.5 million in January 2012.

The trend estimate for pig slaughterings remained steady at 394 thousand in January 2012.

LIVESTOCK SLAUGHTERED, Australia, January 2012
	Original	Seasonally Adjusted	Trend
	no.	no.	no.
Cattle(a)	497 818	625 888	622 651
Calves	27 604	59 448	58 124
Sheep	514 109	435 597	449 657
Lambs	1 448 081	1 544 456	1 479 173
Pigs	363 259	397 064	393 618
(a) Excludes calves

MEAT

In January 2012 the trend estimate for beef production increased by 1% to 180 thousand tonnes.

Veal production increased by 3% in January 2012 to 4 thousand tonnes but decreased by 7% compared to January 2011.

In January 2012, the production of mutton increased by 1% from December 2011 to 10 thousand tonnes.

Lamb production in January 2012 remained steady at 32 thousand tonnes.

The trend estimate for production of pig meat in January 2012 remained steady at 29 thousand tonnes.

MEAT PRODUCED, Australia, January 2012
	Original	Seasonally Adjusted	Trend
	t	t	t
Beef	143 312	180 670	179 878
Veal	2 544	3 878	3 720
Mutton	11 744	10 096	10 290
Lamb	32 343	34 404	32 193
Pig meat	26 047	29 253	28 997