The other Australia
When you think of Australia, what comes to mind?
White sandy beaches?
Tropical rainforests?
The Great Barrier Reef?
Surfing?
Deadly creatures?
Kangaroos? (There are an estimated 50 million in Australia.)
Kangaroos and beaches?
These 'tourist brochure' cliches of Australia are justifiably excellent. But they represent just one side of Australia.
What probably doesn’t come to mind when thinking of Australia is cattle. But perhaps they should.
Australia has more cattle – about 27 million – than people. The USA has nearly 4x more cattle than Australia, but they’re far fewer than its people.
In fact, Australia is a country of cowboys - or, in Australian parlance, stockmen and ringers.
This is the unglamorous Australia. The unsexy Australia. The Australia that doesn’t hit tourist brochures - despite the popularity of pink shirts.
This is the 'other Australia'.
In 2016, Australia was the world’s 7th biggest producer of beef, behind the likes of the USA, Brazil, the EU, and China – all with enormously bigger populations.
Of the top-10 beef-producing countries, Australia has 24 million people and Argentina is the second-smallest with 44 million.
In 2015-16, 64,000 people were directly employed in the Australian beef industry. Another 38,000 were employed in mixed sheep and beef farming.
Beef is by far the greatest of the Australian livestock industry, which directly employs 179,000 and has revenues of $62 billion.
Queensland, a tourist mecca, is the epicentre of the Australian beef industry, with over 10.5 million of the country’s beef cattle.
Queensland is nearly 2.5x as big in area as Texas - another 'cowboy' place - yet it has about 7.5 people per sq mile v. 104 in Texas.
New South Wales, in the number-two spot, has half as many.
Interestingly, the tables turn when sheep are considered.
When I was a teenager I helped farmers at cattle markets around the place I grew up in England. Clearly I had a deprived childhood!
There used to be a number of them within a 30-mile radius, but most have now closed. Such is the time.
I’m not entirely sure why I liked it.
Perhaps it was because my Dad used to be a farmer before I was born. Or because I come from a ‘farming county’ in England that has a great penchant for 'ooo-aar' accents.
Or perhaps it's because I’m not repulsed by the smell of shit.
(One day I will have a smallholding of pigs and goats and calves. Ironically for this blog, I eat almost no meat.)
Since moving to Australia in late 2016 I have been very keen to visit the saleyard at Roma. This town of 8,000 people is located about 500km west of Brisbane.
There are 3 daily flights on QantasLink from Brisbane to Roma. These take about 55 minutes and often cost $700+ for a day trip.
Roma is Australia’s largest cattle market, and sells up to 400,000 cattle a year. It is key to Australia's beef market.
When I visited, almost 6,000 cattle were for sale.
A few weeks before, 14,000 had been on sale in 1 day.
Some of the 6,000 cattle came from hundreds and hundreds of kms away across Western Queensland and New South Wales.
Some also came from Tennant Creek, Northern Territory, over 2000km away. Such is the importance of Roma.
Around 98% of the cattle sold at Roma come by lorry, often 3-trailer 'road trains'.
The remainder come by rail and, most eye-openingly, "walked in along a stock route."
This is about as distant from Bondi Beach as can be imagined.
When I visited, the cattle on sale were store cattle. This means they're being sold for either breading or, in the case of steers, fattening.
On the other day of the market, they sell prime cattle. These are ready for meat production.
They sell cattle by pen and the order of selling was clear. Steers, heifers (mature but not yet had a calf), cows, and then cows and calves.
Imagine a pen of 10 cattle. You might not want one for whatever reason. Perhaps it's too small or too expensive or with a wild dog bite that is healing. A person standing with the auctioneer then marks that one with yellow paint.
Most of the buyers at Roma are agents. These are middle people who have been tasked by farmers with acquiring cattle in exchange for commission. For example, I might want 75 Hereford cattle weighing X to Y and at 250 to 270 Australian cents per kilo liveweight.
I enjoy exploring the ‘other Australia’.
And learning about off-the-beaten-track places.
It helps to put the tourist brochure and renowned - and still very much real - 'main Australia' into context.
Cheers!
Want to chat? Please contact me! mejamespearson@hotmail.com