Official figures have underestimated the number of cows in Australia by about 20%, the Australian Bureau of Statistics has found, after researchers suggested there could be as many as 10 million unreported cattle in Australia.
ABS agriculture statistics, released on Friday, estimated there were 27.8 million beef cattle across the country in 2023, a significant increase on previous years.
These findings may have significant implications for the red meat industry’s greenhouse gas reporting because the volume of its annual methane emissions are extrapolated from the ABS herd size data.
The increase was due to an updated methodology that relied less on farm surveys – questionnaires previously used to estimate the national herd size that excluded small-scale cattle producers. A comparison using the previously published cattle numbers for 2019-22 showed an average of 4 million more cattle a year under the new methodology.
A 2021 University of Queensland study found the number of cattle in Australia could be about 35 million, or 56-75% higher than previous ABS estimates.
The report’s lead author, Geoffry Fordyce, a former University of Queensland veterinary scientist, said the latest ABS estimate – that, including dairy cattle, nears 30 million cows – is “starting to get pretty close to the mark”.
“There’s been a vast improvement in methods and they need to be congratulated for that,” Fordyce said. “There are some rough figures but it’s way better than what it was … and it will evolve.”
Fordyce said the increased herd estimate underscores the need to curb “chronic pasture degradation” in northern Australia due to overstocking.
“Then there’s the obvious thing, there’s 20% more methane out there than they thought,” Fordyce said.
The ABS’s head of agriculture statistics, Rob Walter, said the new figures drew on a far greater range of industry, survey and climatic data to more accurately gauge the “full extent” of cattle in Australia.
“Our goal is always to produce statistics as accurate as possible and trusted by the industry,” he said. “We’re quite confident that we’ve done that effectively.”
The revised methodology was part of the bureau’s push to “modernise” its statistics by reducing its dependence on survey data that was causing unnecessary “survey burden” on farmers, and was potentially prone to error.
The latest cattle population estimate is classed as “experimental” while the ABS awaits access to additional industry data sources.
“We will continue to work with the industry experts and use this new data to further refine the numbers,” Walter said. “That may result in some changes.”
A spokesperson for the red meat sector’s marketing and research body, Meat and Livestock Australia, said it “welcomed” the new herd estimates and was “looking forward to working through a greater understanding of what this means for our industry”.
“It will take some time for that to be worked through,” MLA said in a statement. “MLA continues to be informed by the best available science and nationally maintained data.”
In 2017, MLA announced the industry’s “aspirational” carbon neutral by 2030 target, but climate and agricultural scientists have said the goal is unachievable.
In May, a report that used previous ABS data found the sector had reduced its emissions by 78% compared to 2005 levels.
Those reductions, however, were due to reduced rates of land clearing and increased forest regrowth as recorded by the Australian National Greenhouse Gas Inventory, which analysis suggests may be significantly underreporting land clearing in Queensland. Confirmation that the cattle herd was also underestimated has cast further doubt on the accuracy of those claimed reductions.
The industry’s direct emissions, namely from methane expelled by cattle, have not substantially decreased since 2005.
