Will Australian Cattle Benefit from Floods?
AUSTRALIA - Widespread rainfall leading to extensive flooding in Northern Australia is proving disastrous for some beef cattle producers, but the industry overall will benefit, Greg Brown, president of the Cattle Council of Australia, said.
20 February 2009
1 minute read
The floods, fueled by relentless cyclonic rains for nearly all this year - stretched across vast areas of cattle ranching territory to the south and west of the Gulf of Carpentaria estimated at more than 1 million square kilometers - might have resulted in the loss of 100,000 beasts, he said.
According to Weekly Times Now, huge areas in northern Australia have had in excess of 600 millimeters of rainfall already this year and an area on the northeast coast more than 1,200 mm, according to the government's Bureau of Meteorology, which today also reported a moderate shift in the odds favoring higher than normal rainfall over much of northern Queensland state.
"It's a disaster for some individuals, make no mistake," Brown told Dow Jones Newswires by telephone from his property on the eastern edge of the floods, 400 kilometers west of northern Cairns city.
"Those people who are losing cattle and suffering huge losses of production are going to feel that for a fair few years," he added, saying the floods "have been over that country for longer than any time in living memory."
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