The Northern Territory’s livestock export industry now has an official market barometer with the recent launch of the Live Export Price Indicator (LEPI) by the Meat and Livestock Australia’s National Livestock reporting service (MLA NLRS).

The price indicator for livestock is a 14-day continuing average of the price paid for 280kg to 380kg of live male feeder weight cattle from northern Australia being distributed to Indonesia through the Port of Darwin.

LEPI will be reported in cents-per-kg live weight in AUS, the same way cattle are transacted in the live export market. Market data would be released every second Tuesday for the previous fortnight.

The indicator was developed by MLA NLRS with the Northern Territory Livestock Exporters Association (NTLEA) with data coming from producer representatives such as the Northern Territory Cattlemen’s Association and the Northern Australia Beef Research Council.

“The NT now accounts for about 10 per cent of the total national cattle herd, so the live export industry must have a measurable pricing indicator made available by an independent source rather than rely on anecdotal information,” MLA Managing Director Jason Strong said.

Mr Strong said LEPI will provide crucial, timely and independent information to support the live export industry and lead to making more informed business decisions through connected data.

“Critical to the process was the consultation with livestock exporters who contribute their data to the NTLEA and provided regular updates on the indicator’s performance, its accessibility and accuracy,” Mr Strong said.

NTLEA CEO Tom Dawkins said he was grateful for exporter and producer input over the past 12 months in building the indicator with the Meat and Livestock Association.

“The LEPI represents a new benchmark in data-driven market reporting for northern export supply chains and obviously exporters are uniquely placed to report price data for the live trade,” Mr Dawkins said.

He added that accurate market reporting is very much in the exporters’ interest, given they are actively buying and selling cattle daily and maintaining relationships with producers in Australia and importers in Indonesia.

LEPI is the first new indicator MLA’s NLRS has had in seven years, with the last one the Western Young Cattle Indicator which was launched in June 2015.