NOTES

FORTHCOMING ISSUES

ISSUE	Release Date
December 2010	10 February 2011
January 2011	11 March 2011
February 2011	7 April 2011

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. 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.

The ABS welcomes any comments from readers regarding the usefulness, range and quality of the statistics presented in this publication. Comments can be forwarded to: The Environment and Agriculture Business Statistics Centre, Australian Bureau of Statistics, GPO Box 66, Hobart TAS 7001. Alternatively email <agriculture.statistics@abs.gov.au> or phone (03) 6222 5939.


INQUIRIES

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



SUMMARY COMMENTARY


LIVESTOCK

• In November 2010, the trend estimate for cattle slaughterings fell 1% from October 2010 to 616 thousand.
• Calf slaughterings in November 2010 declined 26% compared to November 2009.
• The trend estimate for sheep slaughterings remained steady in November but is still down 21% from November 2009.
• Lamb slaughterings in November 2010 fell, down 1% from October 2010 and 7% from November 2009.
• In November, the trend estimate for pig slaughterings remained steady at 388 thousand.

LIVESTOCK SLAUGHTERED, Australia - November 2010
	Original	Seasonally Adjusted	Trend
	no.	no.	no.
Cattle(a)	665 432	620 840	616 212
Calves	40 839	64 953	58 856
Sheep	638 537	511 557	529 533
Lambs	1 775 738	1 556 938	1 512 688
Pigs	376 634	386 328	387 688
(a) Excludes calves

MEAT

• In November 2010, the trend estimate for beef production remained steady at 174 thousand tonnes.
• Veal production rose 1% from October 2010 and was down 22% from November 2009.
• The trend estimate for mutton production remained steady at 12 thousand tonnes, but still is down 18% from November 2009.
• In November 2010, production of lamb fell by 1% from October 2010 to 33 thousand tonnes. Lamb production was down 5% compared to November 2009.
• The trend estimate for production of pig meat remained steady at 28 thousand tonnes.

MEAT PRODUCED, Australia - November 2010
	Original	Seasonally Adjusted	Trend
	t	t	t
Beef	191 652	176 667	173 797
Veal	3 390	4 146	3 530
Mutton	14 994	11 442	11 894
Lamb	38 114	33 375	32 522
Pig meat	27 435	28 438	28 384