Meat and Livestock Australia (MLA) tips that the lacklustre times for the beef industry may have reached an end, signalling an improvement in the market this year.

Hereford producer Andrew MacDougall, "Green Hills", Adelong, whose 18-month-old joined commercial heifers are pictured, believes there will be a recovery in the market.

He said this would occur as the season continued to improve and overseas markets slowly recover from the recession.

When launching MLA’s Cattle Industry Projections, MLA Economist Tim McRae was cautious but he did signal the low-point prices for beef should have passed.

However, he warned that there wouldn’t be a complete market recovery until demand lifted in Japan, Korea and the US and the Australian dollar needed to recede to a more manageable level too.

“Although there is likely to be some improvement in beef and cattle prices in the US this year, Japanese demand is likely to remain sluggish,” Mr McRae said.

“Australian beef will also come under increased pressure in Korea from US beef, spurred by a multi-million dollar marketing campaign and low US dollar.”

Overall, beef exports in 2010 are expected to fall 5.7 per cent year-on-year to 875,000 tonnes shipped weight (swt), with beef exports to Japan forecast to fall seven per cent, to 330,000 tonnes in 2010, and 18 per cent to Korea, to 95,000 tonnes (swt).

The high Australian dollar is expected to remain the primary problem for Australian export processors and is likely to be exacerbated by lower numbers of cattle available for slaughter,” Mr McRae said.

MLA forecasts adult cattle slaughtering to fall 4.5 per cent to 7.4 million head in 2010, the lowest since 1996, due to the smaller herd, previous poor breeding seasons and the retention of more females (halting the herd liquidation).

With a small lift in weights, beef production is forecast to fall around four per cent, to 2.05 million tonnes carcase weight (cwt).