Meat & Livestock Australia is taking considered action to support global containment efforts of coronavirus and has closed all its offices (except China) until Monday 27 April, or until otherwise advised.
This means all MLA employees, including Livestock Market Officers who collect livestock data across Australia's saleyards, will work remotely from home from this time. Livestock Market Officers will no longer attend saleyards but will work to deliver market reports remotely from their homes.
Market information services will continue. The information published on the MLA website under the following sections will continue:
However, there will be some differences. Reports will still be available and will still be generated according to ISO standards. They will rely on saleyard data being made available to MLA. Where data has not been made available to MLA, we will report that this is the case. The key differences will be:
- Market reports will be available slightly later than usual - the sale will need to be complete before MLA will have the sale data. The report will be written following the sale completion and after obtaining feedback from saleyard staff and agents
- The contents of the market reports will change slightly, with the major difference being that fat and muscle scores will not be available; and for sheep and lamb there will not be an estimated carcase weight or skin value
Existing cattle and sheep indicators will cease. The indicator charts/tools/values across the MLA webpages will no longer be updated. Existing Indicator reports will no longer be emailed, nor available on the website. All existing indicators include specifications that contain a combination of fat and/or muscle scores, dressing percentages (cattle) and estimated carcase weights (sheep) they will no longer be generated in their current form.
A selection of comparable (but distinct in specification) are currently being tested for accuracy in portraying saleyard-driven price trends and movements across both the nation and individual States. These will be made available to all industry stakeholders via email and/or via the MLA Prices and Markets webpage