Russell Cooke has been running a stock feed manufacturing business in Australia’s remote Kimberley region since 2014 and says he’s never been busier.
Key points:
- Phosphorus deficiency is a major problem for cattle in northern Australia
- Australia imports all of its monocalcium phosphate (MCP), which is used in livestock supplements
- A resource company is aiming to mine and manufacture MCP near Cloncurry in outback Queensland
“The wet season really failed in parts [of northern Australia], so we’ve been getting a lot of early orders and extra customers for supplements to help keep weight on cattle for as long as possible,” he said.
Mr Cooke makes cattle supplements and feeds using a range of ingredients, which sometimes can be sourced from his home state of Western Australia, such as maize from the Ord Irrigation Scheme, canola meal from Perth, and salt from Port Hedland.
But when it comes to the key ingredient of phosphorus, Mr Cooke needs to look overseas.
“So that’s been tricky over the past two years with container shipping issues and the price increasing.
“If we could get locally made MCP [monocalcium phosphate] it would be awesome.”
Loading
Does outback Qld hold the key?
A resources company operating in the Georgina Basin of Queensland has the cattle industry in its sights.
Chatham Rock Phosphate is in the final stages of acquiring a phosphate mine near Cloncurry and has multi-million-dollar plans to build an MCP processing plant on site.
“Right now MCP is a fully imported product, with around 30,000 tonnes a year imported into Australia of which 75 per cent comes from China,” executive director Colin Randall said.
Mr Randall said the production of MCP required phosphate, limestone and sulphuric acid, which were all available in the region.
“As far as we know, there are no other companies [in Australia] looking at producing MCP,” he said.
“We’ve sent samples to Belgium for testing and the recent results are encouraging us to take the next step and do some pilot studies.”
He said if all went to plan, the processing plant could be operational by 2025 and capable of producing 30,000 tonnes of MCP per year.
Northern Australia’s cattle industry will be watching closely.
Watch this story on ABC TV’s Landline at 12:30pm on Sunday, or on ABC iview.
Discussion about this post