NSW Department of Primary Industries

Poultry

Production of chicken meat increased significantly in 2023-24 up by over 8% to almost 537 thousand tonnes, with NSW the largest producer nationally. While implied farmgate prices for chickens lifted for the year by nearly 15%, the consumer poultry price rose just 2.4% over 2023-24. Retail poultry meat prices needed to respond to decreasing red meat retail prices through the year as dry conditions through to late 2023 encouraged those producers to destock. Investments in poultry production by industry continues to support production growth in the state.

Production

Chicken Meat Production

  • NSW
  • Vic
  • Qld
Download data (.XLSX)
NSW chicken meat production rose significantly in 2023-24, up 8.4% to 536,686 tonnes. This increased NSW share of Australian production to 37%, with 1,448,697 tonnes produced in 2023-24. This was the largest increase of the major producing-states, with production 1.4% higher in Victoria and up 5.7% in Queensland. NSW is the largest producer of chicken meat, with the highest share of Australian production.

In the first two quarters of the financial year, chicken meat production was higher than sheep and lamb production by value as lamb and mutton prices fell in late 2023. The average meat per bird increased to 2.2kg dressed weight. NSW produces the largest birds in Australia, with the average carcase weight in Victoria and Queensland just over 1.8kg in 2023-24.

Late in 2022 Baiada received approval to expand production at its processing facility in Tamworth, up to 140,000 birds per day, and is now under construction. 82 Higher processing capacity will allow for the continued growth in chicken meat production. Baiada also expanded breeding farms in the Riverina.

In late June 2024, two farms tested positive for the HPAI H7N8 strain of avian influenza. This affected one broiler farm in the Hawkesbury, as well as one egg farm. 60

Price

Implied farmgate prices in NSW were nearly 15% higher, to $1.95/kg. This remains below the national average of $2.8/kg. Lower grain prices eased cost pressures for poultry producers, however inflation over the year was elevated. Pork, another protein from intensive livestock systems, had higher price growth over 2023-24. Consumer poultry prices rose 2.4% over 2023-24. While poultry prices increased, there was pressure from falling red meat prices through the year as dry conditions through to late 2023 encouraged producers to destock. This pressure was evident in the June 2024 quarter when retail prices were almost flat on year-ago levels, while price increases peaked in December 2022 quarter.

Retail Price Changes for Meat and Seafood

  • Beef and veal
  • Pork
  • Lamb and goat
  • Poultry
  • Other meats
  • Fish and other seafood
Download data (.XLSX)

Trade and Macroeconomic Conditions

NSW poultry exports were $21 million, down from $25 million in 2022-23. The decline came mainly from lower exports to Vanuatu and Philippines. Papua New Guinea, the major market for NSW poultry, increased % to $7.7 million. Australian chicken meat exports reached a record in 2023-24, up to $133 million. Nearly half of Australia’s exports go to PNG, which increased 37% to $60 million. Vietnam emerged as a major market with a sharp increase to $7 million (up 193% over 2022-23). Vietnamese tariffs on poultry cuts have been gradually falling, a factor in its rise to the 5th largest export market for poultry meat. NSW did not import any poultry meat.

DPIRD Initiatives in Focus

DPIRD’s Advanced Gene Technology Centre (AGTC)

AGTC’s state-of-the-art workspaces and instruments allow DPIRD’s scientists to deploy a range of emerging genetic technologies across agriculture, fisheries and forestry, enhancing the productivity and profitability of our industries and underpinning biosecurity and market access.

Gene

Deirdre Hanrahan-Tan from AGTC performing DNA sequencing on an Illumina MiSeq sequencer at the EMAI node.

Genomic technologies are key to expediting DPIRD’s delivery of science-focused outcomes to address a broad range of global challenges faced by primary industries. Having our own skilled workforce and appropriate infrastructure ensures that our R&D portfolio can rapidly respond to production, biosecurity and environmental issues that are unique to the NSW context, fast tracking the delivery of locally-adapted solutions to our stakeholders.

DPIRD’s Advanced Gene Technology Centre (AGTC) has state-of-the-art workspaces and instruments essential to allowing our scientists to deploy this next wave of genetic technologies, build new collaborative opportunities and access new co-investment sources, so that our stakeholders are amongst the first globally to benefit from the next wave of genetic approaches.

The AGTC provides the opportunity to apply a range of emerging technologies across agriculture, fisheries and forestry, enhancing productivity and profitability of our industries, underpinning biosecurity and market access, delivering new options to manage natural resources and invasive species.

AGTC
Its facilities are unique, with no other organisation having positioned resources in a comparable way. It supports the ongoing relevance and modernisation of DPIRD’s science portfolio, ensures DPI retains ownership of its data and associated intellectual property and helps maintain our reputation as a world leader in primary industries R&D. Key deliverables in the AGTC’s first year of operation include:

  • Local refinement and delivery of “environmental DNA” (eDNA) technologies to profile freshwater fish and vertebrate communities for environmental monitoring and management, underpinning biodiversity and stocking assessments
  • Underpinning rapid, in-house identification of potential biosecurity threats, expediting management decisions based on (positive and negative) results to reduce losses under the invasion curve
  • Expanding the use of diagnostics based on whole genome sequencing of pests and pathogens into routine biosecurity operations, improving the confidence in identification, surveillance and tracing
  • Lifting internal capability by developing new skills amongst internal staff, promoting autonomy and expanding project opportunities
  • Enhancing local culture in handling, storing and analysing data derived from science programs, reducing issues with duplication, security, integrity, and retaining data and associated intellectual property in-house
  • Development and delivery of data and results as a service to clients – in the case of internal clients, this enhances the expenditure of project funds within DPIRD rather than those funds being paid to an external service provider, in the case of external clients, this delivers new revenue streams to DPIRD.
  • Underpinning initial research to use emerging technologies such as gene editing, cellular transformation and comparative genomics to develop and/or increase the persistence of desirable quality traits in crop lines, livestock and aquatic animals (eg to increase tolerance to pests and diseases and/or to abiotic stresses); to enhance diagnostic and surveillance tools to address biosecurity threats; and to monitor, characterise and manage invasive species at scale.
www.dpi.nsw.gov.au