SPEAKING on behalf of the WA Live Exporters Association last week, Steve Meerwald told South West beef producers about the wealth of opportunities.
"The live export space is fairly challenging every day and others even more so," Mr Meerwald said.
He said it was time for the beef industry to determine where it was going in the next six months.
While the industry had been on a roller coaster ride for the past five years, Mr Meerwald said no one knew how much more growth could be achieved.
"This time last year everyone thought they were in a good space and it has continued on up," he said.
"The total number of cattle exported in 2015 was just over 1.2 million head, and for the start of this year was over 600,000, so we are on target to equal last year."
Mr Meerwald said there were still challenges to reach last year's total.
"There is a shortage of cattle across Australia, brought on by the heavy sell-off of cattle during the drought in the eastern States," he said.
"WA has been a big supplier in the past 12 months, because we had the same herd size."
Mr Meerwald believed the herd size should be closer to 3m instead of about 2m in WA.
"It would be sustainable, but it will only be sustainable if there is money for the producer," he said.
"We have a lot of country in WA that could be good cattle country, but it isn't being used for production, it could be now, but that has never been thought of.
"With cattle values close to $3 per kilogram, the value is there."
Mr Meerwald said WA's value had grown but it, and production, needed to continue to increase.
In 2011, the value of live exports in WA were $177m to the State, which grew to $280m in 2015.
In comparison boxed beef was worth $77m in 2011 and $184m in 2015.
Mr Meerwald said producers needed to concentrate on value and volume would follow, but then increase volume with quality.
"What we should be doing is increasing our production to where it is profitable to do so," he said.
"But we must increase the value.
"There is no use producing more and everyone going broke doing it, we need to produce products that command and demand a premium.
"We need to produce products that our customers want above product from other places."
Globally, there has been growth in markets but international markets were under pressure.
"In 2015 Vietnam was a bigger market for WA than Indonesia," he said.
"We also have a solid market in Israel and Malaysia."
In Indonesia no import permits had been issued for the September to December period, there were political sensitivities and it had approved the importation of Indian buffalo meat.
While there were challenges, Mr Meerwald said the market was signalling 700,000 feeder cattle from Australia in 2017.
Vietnam, which was the largest export market for WA in 2015, has been oversupplied and Export Supply Chain Assurance Scheme was still a challenge.
Other markets, such as the United States, were also rebuilding herds.
Mr Meerwald said the US had allowed the import of Brazilian beef, which had already had been felt in the WA market.
He said Brazil was a competing supplier as its cattle herd was more than 200m with 55m beef cows.
Brazil is pressing for access into the Asian markets, as its domestic consumption was lower due to the slower economy.
In WA, demand and pressure on prices would remain short-term.
While a correction was looming, Mr Meerwald said it was too hard to determine when it would be, due to the strong domestic drivers.
"Take advantage of the good times," Mr Meerwald said.
"Reinvest in efficiency and productivity and have strong relationships with your customers."
