The Indonesian government has just issued permits for Indian buffalo meat. Dr Ross Ainsworth says that this will reduce the live cattle number to 300000/year from 2017. Oh really? How come? All that story that they needed meat from the wet markets ....to make bakso balls etc...and provide an essential protein source to poor malnourished neighbours.....(as per Back 2011).

Yeah well it turns out that the main destination of this frozen product will be the infamous bakso ball market....which suddenly is quite comfortable using frozen product, albeit not from Australia....perhaps we could have been looking at Indonesia differently (as per Norris 2011).

The good thing for our compassionate Senator...and the Indonesians....is that those poor Indonesians will now be getting a cheap convenient protein source....

Reference: Hansard: WEDNESDAY, 10 AUGUST 2011
CANBERRA.
Senator BACK: The fact is that the Australian live export industry has supplied protein to about 68 million Indonesians. Most of that has now been cut off; it has certainly not been replaced. The reality is that they simply cannot afford to buy our boxed meat and that is the tragedy....
Mr Norris: I am not sure of the proposition that history is a good guide. We are seeing enormous socioeconomic and demographic change in south-east Asia. We are seeing rising incomes. We are seeing a concomitant demand for beef, and that will tap up into the higher end of the market. I think we could hamstring ourselves badly if we just simply looked to the past and not the future. Hansard: WEDNESDAY, 10 AUGUST 2011
CANBERRA.

VALE's ship tracking located the Nada unloading in Lebanon, AFTER it had unloaded cattle in Turkey. Turns out WA has sent the first shipment of Australian sheep to Lebanon since the Cormo Express disaster. So not only did sheep have to go to Lebanon via Turkey....an ultra long haul....we suddenly have 5 Australian approved facilities in Lebanon, a country not know for its ideal abattoir practices.

Hardly any comfort to hear that the exporter is Perth-based live animal exporter Fares Rural Exports....yep thats right of Farid Fares and MV Danny F II fame.....these 2 ships sunk with loss of all livestock. The Danny F II, barred from Australian trading due to safety issues (so whipped off to Montevideo instead) also lost a highly popular Australian stockman (Gary Beckett)...and yeah, it sank just off Lebanon.

RuralCo's southern live cattle exporting business,  Frontier International Agri, has had its exporters licence cancelled by the Department of Agriculture over the Johnes disease shipment to Japan.

This is astounding....despite multiple non-compliances of ESCAS resulting in serious (and usually widespread) animal cruelty, licences are not revoked. But now a trade has been suspended by another country, it is serious enough to suspend a licence.

Yep, Dept of Ag acting appropriately.....with its main aim to promote trade. Regulation? Sure, only if it interferes with that trade.