The hoped for price strength going into September fizzled out by mid-month as much of the industry convened in China for the Shanghai leather fair. Tanner visits by sellers in the week prior to and after the event, held in the first week of September, also brought less business and lower prices than producer and trader alike had hoped would develop.

What a summer! Foot and mouth returned to the UK in what appears to be an accidental leak from a testing site near London. It is still unclear as to who was at fault over this but it is quite clear that the UK hide and skin handlers have had to pay a heavy price for which there will be no compensation.

After the hard won battle to get American beef back into South Korea, Seoul has now banned imports from four of Cargill’s five beef plants due a series of erroneous shipments.

The big slowdown in Ireland continued throughout June and it is anticipated to last well into August. Cattle weights for the carcases were lower resulting in a lighter average weight for hides.

During the four-week period ended June 23, 2007, Federally Inspected Slaughter showed an average weekly kill of 678,750, only slightly up from the 677,000 of our previous report. This compares with an average of 685,750 in the same period the previous year and represents a 1.9% increase over 2006.

Again in the month of May and well into June, most packers as well as processors produced more hides than they managed to sell. This situation helped to push prices steadily lower, week by week on the most voluminous selections.

FAO and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are researching the genes of black Bengal dwarf goats, a key leather livestock in Bangladesh, to improve breeding techniques and the species' health. They are a key and distinctive element of the countries estimated 30 million goat population that produces 20 million sq ft of skins annually.

The hide market dropped further since our last issue. April saw typical weeks where more hides were produced than sold, thus forcing producers to gradually accept lower bids in order to keep their hides moving.

May proved to be almost as difficult for hide traders as April. Tanners complained and moaned about everything from weights to shapes to flay, to fat to dung and finally to a fall in the value of splits.

During the four-week period ended April 28, 2007, Federally Inspected Slaughter showed an average weekly kill of 634,750, up from the 629,500 in our last report. This compares with an average of 621,750 in the same period the previous year and represents a 2.9% increase over 2006.

Australian cattle slaughter for 2006 was 7.93 million head - an increase of 300,000 cattle over the previous year. This is the highest recorded since 1998 when, coincidentally, Australia was last in a severe drought. The largest increases in cattle slaughter have been in the eastern states where the drought has been the most severe.

Kills were steady during March and despite slaughterhouses complaining about losing significant amounts of money by having to pay high prices for live cattle, the kill levels were higher than had been anticipated.

During the four-week period ended February 17, 2007, Federally Inspected Slaughter showed an average weekly kill of 631,000 up from the 611,750 of our last report. This compares with an average of 583,500 in covering the same period the previous year and represents a 4.4% increase over 2006.

As Christmas approached the seasonal decline in kills kicked in and by the week commencing December 18, cattle numbers fell off rapidly. This coincided with tannery shut down and during the period in between Christmas and the New Year the abattoirs killed on only one day.