An agriculture expert has warned of supply chain issues and voiced concerns about livestock in northern New South Wales and Queensland as the region is lashed with wild weather from Tropical Cyclone Alfred.
The cyclone has re-intensified into a category two system as it lingers about 630km east of Brisbane and is expected to make landfall between late Thursday and early Friday.
Its ramifications for the region’s agriculture are a point of concern with Jared Greenville, executive director of the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences.
Mr Greenville highlighted challenges facing the local industry in an interview with Sky News Australia’s Business Now on Tuesday.
“The weather events and the cyclone at the moment are a big focus for agricultural producers in that region,” Mr Greenville told host Ross Greenwood.
“We produce around two per cent of Australia’s agriculture in terms of value out of that region and a lot of horticultural products and also some poultry.”
Mr Greenville said ABARES is looking at how the wild weather will impact the area and gave a few insights into what the area could face.
“It’s a bit of wait and see at the moment but often some of the first-round impacts are obviously the cutting of supply lines and that’s important for product that’s recently been harvested or getting product out to market, but (it’s) also important to getting feed and so forth in,” Mr Greenville said.
“We’ve also got issues around livestock getting stranded and making sure we can get feed to them.”
Mr Greenville said there are a “few impacts” to consider such as the damage to the area and “assessing what that means for farms and their produce and their incomes later on”.
The heavily impacted region neighbours the Murray Darling Basin which is Australia’s main area for irrigated agriculture.
Tropical Cyclone Alfred is forecast to turn west towards Queensland’s coastline later on Tuesday, with the current watch zone encompassing areas from Sandy Cape down to Grafton in NSW.
Mr Greenville’s warning comes as ABARES forecasts the value of Australia’s agriculture in the 2026 financial year to be the third highest on record at $91 billion.
This is slightly down on an “exceptional” 2025 financial year, Mr Greenville said, as the nation expects strong results for livestock and livestock products to hit a new record value of $40 billion.
“Demand for red meat is reflected in both strong export volumes and rising export prices, which has led to the total value of meat exports expected to hit $22 billion this financial year,” he said in a statement.
“Agricultural exports are also looking healthy next year, with the value forecast to remain relatively steady at $72 billion – or $77 billion if we include fisheries and forestry.”
