Cheap beef on table at Qld cattle talks

Independent MP Bob Katter says selling Queensland beef cheap could help the cattle industry crisis. Source: AAP

SELLING cheap Queensland beef in supermarkets could be the key to getting the cattle industry back on its feet, graziers say.

The idea was raised by graziers with federal and state agriculture ministers at crisis talks in Queensland's northwest on Tuesday.

The industry is suffering due to a state-wide drought and plummeting cattle prices caused largely by a reduction in live cattle exports to Indonesia.

Federal independent MP Bob Katter says one of the ideas put forward at the meeting was to sell Queensland beef in supermarkets at just 10 per cent above cost price.

"Even if we can't sell cattle they still eat grass and there's no grass [due to a state-wide drought]," he told AAP.

"This idea would take a couple of hundred thousand cattle off the market over the next two years."

Mr Katter says an overwhelming number of graziers who attended Tuesday's crisis meeting called for the federal government to reduce interest rates, which he says are crippling farmers.

Even Tuesday's interest rate cut by the Reserve Bank which brought rates down to an all time low, would not be enough help, he said.

"Even after today our interest rates are 10 times higher than our competitors."

Other ideas put forward were for a rates relief package to be implemented and for more meatworks to be built.

Graziers also want the federal government to buy 100,000 cattle - at a cost of about $150 million - and gift them to Indonesia.

Mr Katter says this would repair the relationship between the two countries.

In 2011 the government temporarily banned live exports to Indonesia following claims of animal cruelty.

The number of cattle being exported to Indonesia, which was then Australia's biggest market, significantly dropped after this. The market has never recovered.

"It sounds like a lot of money but if the Indonesian market reopens they'll get that money back in taxation in two or three years," he said.

Live cattle exports were back in the spotlight this week after new footage emerged showing Australian cattle being abused in Egypt.

Australia's livestock industry has voluntarily suspended cattle exports to the country.

Mr Katter says half a million cattle ready for export could die from starvation as graziers can't afford to feed them, while a million kangaroos which would be shot for their meat would also perish.

"There is no supplementary market for them and all the meatworks are full," he said.

"So instead of having some cattle suffer, all of these cattle and kangaroos are going to suffer terribly."

He also says Egyptians will "build up a huge fund of hatred" toward Australians, which will damage the relationship between the two countries and hurt the cattle industry.

Federal Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig says the government is providing funds to farmers to alleviate the stress of unmanageable debt.

"For Queensland, we're providing additional rural financial counsellors, including a dedicated officer for graziers in the gulf," he said.

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