Livestock industry logistics

The beef herd of northern Australia stands at 12.5 million cattle supplying nearly 90 per cent of Australia’s live cattle export, with 694,000 head exported in 2011. It also supplies large numbers of  cattle to southern Australia. Nearly 50 per cent of cattle in the Northern Territory (NT) travel upwards of 1,000 km between farm gate and abattoir or port. Transport costs exceed $150 per head.

While infrastructure investment will reduce costs for producers, there is currently no tool to evaluate the whole system to ensure that investment in infrastructure maximises whole of industry productivity.

CSIRO has developed a suite of tools to analyse small and large scale investments in the supply chain for all northern livestock logistics. These Livestock Logistics Tools can be used to evaluate proposed projects such as

• upgrade of 510km Carnarvon/Gregory highway between Clermont and Roma,
• construction of a new abattoir in Darwin,
• determining the location of a new spelling yard in NT

To read more about this project please click here.