APRIL was a busy month for live sheep and cattle exports from Western Australia with 133,828 sheep being exported from Fremantle, as well as 29,503 cattle leaving Fremantle, Broome and Wyndham for various destinations.
A further 1423 sheep were exported via air freight from Perth to Malaysia for slaughter.
Statistics from the Department of Agriculture, Water and the Environment show that the live export trade from WA to overseas markets is alive and well, on top of the high demand of WA livestock from the Eastern States.
The vast majority of the sheep exported, 125,912, went to the Persian Gulf markets of Qatar (40,000) Kuwait (68,912) and Oman (17,000), while a small consignment went to Russia (7916).
A mixture of slaughter and feeder cattle were exported to eight different markets, including Indonesia (9860), Malaysia (3528), Vietnam (2544), China (1825), Israel (6947), Qatar (1484) and Kuwait (416).
A consignment of 2899 feeder cattle also went to Russia from WA, along with 11,419 from Portland, Victoria.
Landmark International exported two shipments of Dorper sheep from Australia to Russia in recent years.
The latest Russian consignment is possibly the last shipment to round out the 30,000 head order for Russian importer Miratorg, which is developing a large-scale meat production facility in the Kursk region in an effort to provide better food security for Russia.
Farm Weekly understands they sought commercial breeding ewes from WA Dorper breeders for this last consignment.
Landmark International was sold to the Winten Group and renamed Southern Australian International Livestock Services (SAILS) earlier this year, with all management moving across to run the company.
The total April export figures for Australia by sea were 92,036 cattle and 133,828 sheep.
Fremantle Port has been the third busiest port in the country for cattle exports so far in 2020 with 63,559 head loaded behind Townsville and Darwin on 105,670 and 105,595 respectively.
At the end of April 418,936 head of sheep had been exported via Fremantle Port for 2020.
Consignments by air freight saw 567 breeder cattle, 1600 breeder goats and 1513 breeder sheep exported.
These went to various markets including New Zealand, Malaysia, Taiwan, China, Indonesia, Vietnam and Cambodia.