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Rainfall variability is a major challenge to sustainable and profitable beef production in northern Australia.�Strategies to manage for variability exist, but adoption by managers is hindered by the perceived incompatibility of profitability and sustainability. Accordingly, a large (1042 ha), long-term trial was established to quantify the effects of different grazing strategies on profitability and land condition. Strategies included fixed stocking with heavy and moderate stocking rates, moderate stocking with rotational wet season spelling and flexible/variable stocking. This paper presents a brief summary of results from the first 19 years of this ongoing trial. Rainfall varied markedly over the course of the trial (range: 246-1240 mm) with some extreme drought years. After 19 years, pasture condition was best under fixed moderate stocking and rotational spelling, but by far the worst under heavy stocking. Pasture condition was intermediate under variable/flexible stocking due to the legacy effects of a single episode of overstocking preceding a major drought in 2002. Individual animal production was highest under moderate stocking rates with these animals also receiving market premiums at the meatworks. In contrast, total animal production was highest under heavy stocking but this strategy required expensive drought feeding and destocking in a number of years. Consequently, after 19 years the accumulated gross margin of the heavy stocking strategy was less than one third that of the other strategies. Bio-economic modelling confirmed that these trends would also apply at the whole-of-property level. The present results are the first objective data in Australia to show that recommended strategies such as fixed moderate stocking, varying stock numbers in response to forage availability and fixed moderate stocking in conjunction with wet season resting are both more sustainable and profitable than heavy stocking.