Cattle producers and employers in related industries said they could only “hope and pray” for the live export ban to Indonesia to be lifted, while they have to watch their employees leave the industry.

Northern Feed & Cube’s General Manager, Lawrence Christian, said the export ban had “literally devastated” his business and the first employee had already resigned in what he calls “a sensible decision”.

“She came to us for a chat about a new job she had been offered and all we could do was support her decision to leave and take the new job,” Mr Christian said.

“It is sensible – in the situation the industry is in we cannot tell anyone to stay unless we can guarantee continuing employment.

“People depend on their employment and their income and they have to look at the future.

“Because of the live export ban every employee in the industry is in jeopardy, contractors' employees are in jeopardy, farmers' employees are in jeopardy.

“Government has to wake up and realise that they are destroying Northern Australia.”

Mr Christian, who only started three months ago as the general manager at Northern Feed and Cube – in what was meant to be a “step up in the career” – said he was now working “to hold it together as long as possible”.

“Our business is to 98 per cent related to the live export business – we make the feed that goes onto the ships and we make the pre-feed that is fed to cattle before they go onto the ships.

“As of the exact day (from the day the export ban was put in place) we had only one boat to leave with our feed on.

“Before the ban we were a progressive business with no indications of any problems and no expectation of not going easily for another 20 years. Now we can only hope and pray for government to wake up.”

Mr Christian said government needed to realise that the industry was “not a machine you can just turn off. Farming is a 12-months-a-year operation.”

“The export ban has put everyone on edge – it is hard for people not to know what the future holds.”