The sheep industry in Zealand has been getting smaller ever since 1982 when sheep numbers reached 70 million. The latest numbers are 26 million in 2021, having dropped from 32.6 million in 2010. Yet sheep still earn over $4 billion of annual export income.
In recent months I have had plenty to say about both greenhouse gas policy and forestry as they are affecting and will affect all New Zealand agriculture. Here, I focus specifically on sheep farming to seek answers as to where the industry might head.
Focusing first on market returns, the last two decades have brought lots of good news. Lamb and mutton prices have risen faster than other pastoral products, including dairy, and at a considerably higher rate than general inflation. Yet somehow it has not been enough to stem the decline.
The key factors driving the decline have changed over time. Initially, it was the huge rural decline of the 1980s and the removal of the distorting subsidies of the Muldoon Government. Quite simply, those Muldoon policies, with payments for each extra animal carried, led to skinny underperforming sheep.
During the 1990s, the key driver was the march of pine trees across the North Island, but that stopped in about 1998 with declining timber prices.
Then there was the dairy boom, already under way in the late 1990s, and then continuing through to the middle of the last decade. Availability of irrigation together with new irrigation technologies were very important in Canterbury. Further south it was a diverse range of technologies that drove change. Despite lamb prices being good, wool prices were terrible, and the call of dairying was very strong.
Right now, those forces have changed again. There is zero conversion now occurring of sheep land to dairy, owing in large part to new regulations. However, the call of forestry is once again strong. Also, there is great concern about greenhouse gas levies, mainly methane but also nitrous oxide.
The forestry situation is complex and some might say crazy. As I write this, the Government is giving serious consideration to pulling so-called permanent pine forests from the Emission Trading Scheme. If this happens, all new pine forests will be for short-cycle production forests, typically of 28 years or in some cases a few more years. The irony is that this will encourage tree planting on the softer country which is easier to harvest and with a preference for land that is well-located relative to ports. Yet it is on hard erosion-prone hard hill country, far from ports, where land should be going into long-term pine forests.
Assuming that the Government sticks to its latest proposals, pine-production forests will stay within the ETS, but with carbon credits limited to the first 16 years. Depending on location, these credits will, at current carbon prices, be worth about $30,000 per hectare on most North Island farms but less in most parts of the South Island. That is enough to blow sheep farming away on most of the better sheep farming land. Of course, if the price of carbon rises much higher as the Government has said it wants to happen, then these returns will further increase. But it’s a game where the Government sets the rules and those rules can change.
The greenhouse gas story is also complex. A typical sheep emits about 12 kg of methane per annum, which may not sound much. It only stays in the atmosphere for about 12 years, but while it is there it does have a big effect.
One of the remarkable things about New Zealand sheep farming systems is that huge efficiencies have been made in relation to methane emissions. The emissions are in direct proportion to the amount of feed eaten. Remarkable improvements in productivity mean that a much greater proportion of the feed is now used to generate production, rather than simply maintaining bodyweight. This change has largely been driven by higher twinning rates and much higher lamb carcass weights.
According to industry body Beef+Lamb, each kg of lamb meat is now associated with 31 percent less emissions than was the situation 30 years ago. There has been very little publicity about this.
Linked to these changes, the invisible atmospheric cloud of methane sourced from New Zealand sheep has actually been declining, with the methane historically emitted by sheep now leaving the atmosphere faster than new sheep-sourced methane is entering the atmosphere.
The counter-balancing fact is that each newly emitted molecule of methane still causes warming that would not occur if it were not emitted. Accordingly, methane emissions from sheep cannot be simply ignored. We do need to continue the search for further reductions in emissions per unit of meat.
As I have said many times, nothing is simple when it comes to agriculture’s effects on climate. And anyone who thinks the issues are simple, does not understand the problem.
Currently, sheep farmers are nervous about what will come out of the current debate about whether agriculture will enter the ETS or whether the Government will accept the alternative proposals about to be submitted to Government by He Waka Eke Noa. Many farmers don’t like either option.
I have written elsewhere about those issues and so I won’t repeat that here. But those issues aren’t going away. What I will say here is that if agriculture does go into the ETS based on the greatly flawed concept of CO2 equivalence, then by the mid-2030s the sheep industry could well have been destroyed. We need to think carefully about that.
Let there be no doubt, sheep farming is the pastoral industry most at risk from misguided greenhouse gas taxes. The first to be destroyed will not be dairy; it will be sheep.
Somehow there has to be a reworking of basic thinking, The aim has to be to focus not on a methane tax which will destroy sheep faming, but on the funding of a methane levy to be invested in future development of emission efficiencies.
If hill-country sheep farming is destroyed, then it is a real puzzle as to what the hill country will be used for. It won’t be beef cattle because they face the same or even more environmental constraints as sheep. It won’t be dairy because, among the other factors, the topography is unsuitable. It certainly won’t be cropping. Will it be pine forests?
Returning to the markets, the long-term future for lamb looks particularly strong. New Zealand and Australia are the only big international traders. Sheep meat is highly regarded spanning a broad arc of countries from the Middle-East across much of Central Asia and through to Western and Northern China. All of those countries are constrained by their own ability to increase production.
If it was a simple case of aligning the supply of sheep-meats with all of the potential consumers, without politics getting in the way, then it would indeed be simple.
One of the big challenges right now is that New Zealand’s urban population does not understand how agri-food systems, from consumers right back to inputs on the farm, are what underpins the New Zealand economy. It is not just about what happens on the farm, but what happens along a value chain leading back from consumers through marketers, processors and farmers to the suppliers of fam inputs.
As I have said many times, New Zealand has an export-led economy. Without exports we have no money for imports. More than 80 percent of merchandise exports come from primary industries, with no obvious alternatives.
Currently, New Zealand is running big deficits on its external current account of about $20 billion per annum. It must be balanced by incoming capital. That is not sustainable. Either exports have to increase or imports have to decline. Given that situation, getting rid of the sheep industry does not seem to be the right way to go.
Y Lamb
Select chart tabs
*Keith Woodford was Professor of Farm Management and Agribusiness at Lincoln University for 15 years through to 2015. He is now Principal Consultant at AgriFood Systems Ltd. You can contact him directly here.
113 Comments
Grattaway,
Overall I am not confident about wool. It is a difficult product to work with.
Much of my own clothing is wool, but that if of the fine wool type.
I remain intrigued by coarse wool for building insulation, but I am not convinced about the appropriate focus and level of R&D that is being undertaken.
KeithW
In the old days, before synthetics, wool was the staple fibre military winter uniforms. Before WW2 the USA had a huge sheep flock primarily for this purpose. Working in the export section of a bank in the 1960s queried why so much of coarse wool was going to Poland. Carpet was the answer. Yet years later viewing one of those docs on abandoned Soviet bases in E Germany etc, scores of Russian great coats left to rot. All best New Zealand Wool said the guide.
To be honest wool is part of the problem on the farm. Dagging, crutching, shearing are all hard work and then wool also brings fly problems. Northland has nowhere near the sheep it once had mainly due to fly. Facial eczema is becoming more problematic, we have had our first cases in lambs this season after farming here for 40yrs, due to climate change.
Take wool away with self shedding or hair sheep and things will change as far as interest in farming sheep. We are 10yrs into the Wiltshire self shedders and love them. They are like mini cattle and even if wool increased in value we would never go back. Strangely our lambing percentage has gone up on our hard hills and we are selling many more Kgs of meat per hectare than we ever did with Perendales or Romneys.
I personally think these type of sheep will be the saviour of sheep farming on the hills.
HW2, We started out by killing all our Romney rams and re placing them with Wiltshire basically going "whole hog". By year 4 there was no shearing but some still carried wool on their backs. We kept all ewe lambs to start with to speed up genetic change then started culling for wool. This spring will be our 10th lambing since changing. Haven't touched a handpeice for over 3yrs. We have a beautiful 6 stand woolshed sitting idle, makes a good workshop.
I believe in wool....organics at least...
Prices for organic wool, meat and crops have been steadily rising above conventional schedules.
"The premium on the grain is probably the big winner, it's getting close to double market value," John says.
https://www.rnz.co.nz/national/programmes/countrylife/audio/2018832949/…
There was a growing market for crossbred organic wool, mainly in the American bedding market.
Consequently, that market couldn't get enough and was paying two to three dollars clean per kilo for certified organic wool, Petersen said.
This presented a real opportunity for farmers in a growing market, especially with the Global Organic Textile Standard - or GOTS - in place, he said.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/the-country/sheep-and-beef/wool-report-organ…
While some skepticism of the organic industry is probably well deserved, writing it all off on the basis of a crazy decision by the Sri Lankan govt to ban fertilisers overnight (due to an outbreak of kidney disease which they think came from Chinese fertilisers...) seems a bit harsh. Reducing our reliance on chemicals (which are usually imported ) to grow our food would seem a sensible move
Well Harvey W that's not a very constructive comment, but it does demonstrate a degree of ignorance...
Sri Lanka's transition to organics was very poorly done (i.e. there was no plan).
We will end up organic as once there is no more oil there will be no more synthetic nitrogen.
Drench resistance is already a major (largely unreported) issue, with Startect (the only product that works on properties with drench resistance) being unavailable as it has sold out across the country.
I could go on but Bees don't waste their time telling the flies that flowers smell better than sh!t....
how many starve under the current system?
plenty (~700 million) without enough food now even with intensive ag. even in nz.
production method is only one of the factors. We could have organics and feed the world if we didn't waste so much (~30%) and people only consumed what they needed, plus reduced meat consumption...
Hi Keith,thanks again for a well written article.I am always intrigued as to course wool as to why any Government has not promoted the advantages of using a natural product,grown in abundance in NZ,known for its thermal ability for insulation,flame resistance,Allergy free & hard wearing when blended with synthetics for carpets-Why have they not utilised this natural product by using it within the whole Government controlled assets,ie Refurbishment of any State owned building,insulation of any State owned house,every Kiwibuild house built.This would not only promote the benefits of using a NZ grown product,it would support the growers who need to be rewarded for their toil-which the NZ economy is so heavily reliant on.Is this not a win,win situation for a product at the moment regarded as a waste product.Regards
Look all I can say as a sheep farmer Dairy farmer joe, is that there is lots of issues with producing wool. For one is that the quantity produced world wise is miniscule in terms of demand for textiles. Secondly there are animal welfare issues with the harvesting of wool. And just to add, I was a shearer for more than 2 decades so I have seen how the whole thing works. I really don't think animal hair is the answer to this so called grown in abundance, which is an over estimation, solution to synthetics. I think we need to look in the direction of plant based textiles.
I don't know the answer to this, but to get things of the back of animals is probably backwards. Having said that we will still need to eat animals and milk them, but if we can give those giving animals the best life with the least interference, then I think we will be getting somewhere.
Grattaway,
Most other sectors are dragging the chain relative to agri-food.
I see increasing bureaucracy particularly within the regulatory system, not only as it affects agriculture, but affecting all sectors including social services.
In contrast, labour efficiency gains in agri-food have been remarkable.
But most people outside of agriculture have no concept of this.
One key issue now is that there is not much investment going on in agriculture. Returns are high but there is low confidence in regard to where NZ is heading.
KeithW
Wool in NZ should move to a higher grade product and be sold into niche industries. For instance these guys have a fantastic product that has appeal to all high end consumer markets. It ticks all the boxes, breaks down, made from natural ingredients, supports the wool industry etc etc. Yet they have found funding impossible to come by because the big players in the industries they are trying to take on are highly anti competitive. For them to be successful they need serious backing, but there isn't much interest.
I’ve seen on Country Calendar, some great family initiatives on preparing retail ready products from their farm production, one family was producing Tote bags from coarse wools, another hemp oil bottled on their farm.
That knowledge of the customer needs to be rewarded and we should progress away from producing for “producer boards”.
They encourage over production, low prices and waste.
Really positive developments.
There will be strong reaction against the microplastics flowing into our water, soils, foodchains and bodies, and there does seem to be growing sentiment to buy from local producers where at all possible. I often see threads on social media of Kiwis asking for NZ-made/grown clothing or other products.
Provenance is for the rich. My wife had to pay $200+ for an ethical bikini (to take a random example). That's a 300% premium. I suspect the next couple of years are going to be hard on the provenance-premium producers. Survival/non-foreclosure is more important than provenance when all is said and done.
pws,
"the poor are getting government grants to make them feel rich". Interesting comment, perhaps you would care to elaborate. Do you know any poor people who, with government grants, now feel rich? Perhaps you could put some numbers on this theory. Which grants and how much? Who is classified as poor?
Should the poor not be given such grants, or should they be be greatly increased?
I’m pleased you found the remark interesting, there may even be some truth in it, but it was a throwaway remark.
I can think of a couple of poor case studies, including mine, but I could say one persons Chrysler Valiant is another persons weekly takeaway, both give some sense of pleasure/reward.
The other case study is a Polynesian family in an overcrowded home in South Auckland, well educated but with intergenerational under employment
I knew some of them well.
Yeah but the big problem in this country is the lack of funding available for such start ups. If only we have a much greater investing culture in this country instead of "buy more houses!", then we could actually fund a bunch of start ups which would lead to long term wealth...
For Jerseys New Zealand woolen industry seems to be heavily focused on fine merino. This is good as far as it goes. If it is made overseas you can forget it as like everything from China it seems to be made from the very short length, poorest quality fiber. Some of the NZ made merino jerseys and sweater are great. However if they are too fine,then they have a tendency to run like nylons, even if well made.
We have lost our capacity (capability- I don't know) to make decent long fiber length crossbreed Jerseys. The stuff you can get is all imported and is just crappy wool. They pill and fall apart in very short order. I have a couple of Kiwi made jerseys. One Made by Tamihine, about 30 years old solid as, and as good as the day I bought it, Not a sign of pilling. The second a Mackenzie Country, almost as old, lighter weight but still no sign of wear or pilling. The jerseys that I have bought subsequently are just rubbish. Even home knitted jerseys are no where as good due to the woolen yarn quality.
It is a great pity when our major woolen companies collapsed, their capability and depth of knowledge has gone with them. We are left with capability that is in comparison somewhere in the range of amateur to artisan.
This might be a good opportunity to describe how our woolen industry was destroyed.
It goes back to Muldoon. He had a vision that all our woolen companies could be combined into one Fonterra like entity. Once a month representatives of each, wined and dined in Wellington, and were supposed to work on amalgamating their companies. For a while this worked, Kaipoi, Petone etc were all gobbled up. It got to the point where there were only two left, Alliance and Mosgiel. They agreed that they would go no further and told the government so. The government would not accept this, so first it tried to force Alliance to yield to Mosgiel by calling in their bank debt. Their manager (Red Jackson) very quickly arranged off shore finance. Next, the government tried the same trick with Mosgiel and called in their (BNZ I think) debt to be re-payed in a day or so. Mosgiel thought they were clever by arranging alternative finance with the DFC. Duh! A government owned finance service. They went broke (insolvent) In reality they were nothing like broke as we saw. The results from the receiver's actions prove this. All debts repaid and the share holders still received close to or better than the share price back.
Nice read. Made me go to my wardrobe. Two Rodd & Gunn fisherman knit going strong ready for winter. One finer knit Paul & Shark made in Italy (oddly bought in Mexico.) All pure NZ wool and indispensable, rugby sideline etc. These are about 25 years old and virtually as presentable as when new. You just cannot find anything as good as this these days sorry to say.
ps Reid Jackson was enlisted by the Meat Exporters to negotiate some ground for them to stand on with the implementation of Meat Board ownership of sheep meat as orchestrated and inflicted by Muldoon. Very difficult circumstances and a challenge indeed. As a result exporters were arranged in groups and that lasted until the Lange/Douglas government arrived and swept out all of that subsidy carry on.
Always an insightful read Keith, clearly the current account deficit cannot continue on it's present trajectory.
It is national self-harm to incentivise an unproductive asset (pine tree's) over a proven foreign exchange earner (lamb/beef/dairy). We can pursue the virtuous goal of de-carbonising our economy, but there is going to be a day of reckoning if those foreign earnings are not replaced. A balance of payments crisis followed by a currency crisis followed by a cost of living crisis and ultimately an economic collapse the like of which none of us have ever seen.
Te Kooti
I would add the caveat that pine trees can still be the right tree in the right place. Many farms have some steep relatively unproductive country where trees for carbon can be a good earner. Also, I have been looking at some photos sent to me this morning from Wairoa way ,and some of that land really should be retired. But I don'tt like to see solid pine forests on the easier land and we are definitely seeing some of that.
KeithW
Sheep have a very important place in NZ's landscape. They have a very light impact on steep country. Cattle will not replace sheep as the soil damage is to great. Economically sheep provide good income per hectare when farmed as easy care. There is no other economic land use for hillcountry besides forestry but I feel that there needs to be diversity and sheep provide that.
There is also an issue with a willingness to work with sheep, many now struggle with training dogs which are vital for sheep farming. I have always enjoyed working with sheep but many now look at me side ways when I say that. Times are changing but to lose the sheep industry would be a blow for NZ Inc.
Hamish, I know some who have used drones. Initially they work but stock soon realize they are harmless and only move if they are harassed but carry on grazing once the drone moves to other sheep. Also once the animals are mobbed up the drone is useless. Try pushing a large mob of ewes and lambs through a gateway with a drone.
Does not mention here the ownership of sheep meat by the Meat Producers Board enforced by the Muldoon government so as to carry the SMPs. Recall that resulted in a trading loss of $1.4 bil or thereabouts and put that on top of the cost of the SMPs themselves, that was a shocking and unwarranted cost to inflict on NZ’s tax payers when the nation was already hard pressed financially. Still one thing emerged that from that which was the initiative (called by the trade, Buy Back) that drove the processors into what was called at the time further processing. The band sawing of frozen carcasses into cuts for seperate markets very quickly developed into fresh to frozen processing and those type of cuts became the foundation for the extremely successful and excellent chilled product of today. The industry though has steadily declined in terms of stock numbers. Not sure if that has plateaued yet, but it would be good to see a new plant or two being built to indicate that there is nowpotential for growth.
At the freezing works i was working at at the time , The Carcass they brought back for $ 26 (from Memory) , was sold to workers and the public for $ 20 , or was rendered down , and sold to India as "animal food". smelt better than the usual by product at least. We did start to build a cutting room, got it 1/2 finished when the union and company couldn't agree on pay / staffing rates , and shut down / locked out the whole plant over it . Just another excuse for a fight , both sides as bad as each other.
The industry surely was then a sorry state of affairs. Processing was of immense over capacity and the complete opposite applied in the marketplace. Instead of the industry hitting the imminent wall and being forced to sort itself out, Muldoon’s intervention fatally induced continuation of the same and in even greater proportions. The next Labour government had no choice other than to sweep out all the stupidities. Unfortunately that badly hurt many, many good farmers along the way and of course initiated drastic restructuring which resulted in the greater number of processors becoming either inoperative or forced to merge.
"The irony is that this will encourage tree planting on the softer country which is easier to harvest and with a preference for land that is well-located relative to ports. Yet it is on hard erosion-prone hard hill country, far from ports, where land should be going into long-term pine forests.
Cant the govt, both central and local, use zoning to control where forests are not wanted. After all zoning is used extensively outside rural zones and anyone trying to carry out an activity that is not permitted in the zone have a big uphill battle.
I agree that zoning should be an important part of the regulatory system for pines. I have argued elsewhere for farmers to be able to plant up to (say) 20% of their land in long-term pine forests for carbon farming and also for larger areas of Class 7 land as permitted activities. Everything else would need a full consenting process.
KeithW.
I was having a discussion about pine forests and the ets with someone the other day and they asked why the carbon credits couldn't be traded globally for export revenue - obviously there must be a global market since NZ's plan is to buy offshore credits later to meet our liabilities. Also overseas companies buying land for carbon farming, are they restricted to using those credits in NZ?
There was a news item the other day where AI and drones were used to plant pine tree's at something like 20x faster (and a lot cheaper I assume) than by hand. Assuming this technology eventually comes here means a further reduction in the economic return (wages) of planting pine.
As for an international market, that makes so much sense given we are not a low cost producer of a carbon credit but I've been told it's open to fraud. I think the economics should eventually mean an international market develops (I mean Western economies are founded on open trade), unless of course the elite don't want it.
If the Government does excise long-term pine forests from the ETS then my expectation is that private international offset schemes will emerge. There is considerable Maori land where this could be done. My guess is that some of the iwi groups will be starting to think collectively of doing this if long-term forests are indeed excluded from the ETS.
KeithW
positivelywallstreet
Country calendar is a great program. But it is not where I would go to get an overall perspective of NZ's agri-food systems.
Commodity trading and government interference/support would also be part of the story but I don't think they provide the punchline.
KeithW
There would be multiple punch lines, relating to the fundamental energy source (the sun), the environmental constraints and challenges, impact of technologies, labour productivity gains, and integrated supply chain, all taking place within a dynamic socio-economic environment where nothing stays constant. And all within an overarching systems framework. And all presented within a context of generating understanding without any of the PR BS.
KeithW
DennisMcManus
Alas, no-one has written the book that needs to be written. I have thought about it occasionally, but it would have to be a labour of love. It would need to be commissioned by a Government grant because no one would take it on as a commercial task. But agri-food systems are so fundamental to NZ's economy that it needs to be done. Every secondary school student should also be introduced to these issues, perhaps as part of the geography curriculum. The lack of understanding within NZ is remarkable.
KeithW
I for one would buy that book, Keith. If only the desires of random strangers on the Internet paid your bills*. We're into our third year on our small block and only now starting to get a handle on what the hell we've gotten ourselves into.
* Edit: That sounds awkward...not a suggestion you become a "webcam girl"...
https://aginfo.lincoln.ac.nz/manual/farm-technical-manual-vol-24-hard-c…
Possibly more in-depth information than your after but if it involves NZ agri systems it’s in here.
Grasslands NZ is another great source of information.
It's hard to imagine a food more nutritious and health enhancing than some good old NZ high country lamb. My dinner will often consist of just lamb chops. No need to add oil or anything else.
Since being on this diet my body now looks similar to the statue of Michelangelo's David and I have acquired unbelievable Kung Fu Chi powers. Okay I made the last bit up.
Yes there is nothing to compare with a good lamb roast although I noticed that the average leg of lamb in Countdown yesterday was around the $50 mark. Lamb has priced itself out of the market for the average NZ family. I did notice that pork chops are the new meat staple....they are for me...I've mostly given up on lamb chops. So I'm thinking that pork will in future be the go-to meat that feeds NZers.
Pork does seem to have become cheaper than lamb. When I was growing up lamb was cheap and pork quite expensive.
However I have found my food bill has actually gone down after switching to a mostly meat diet. I don't buy anything processed or too fancy or snack foods, wine or beer. Meat and eggs are extremely satiating having an intense nutrition density so you don't need or desire huge amounts.
Many people believe meat is fattening yet I have lost so much weight by eating fatty meats that I need a cushion to sit on if I sit on a hard surface while tying my running shoe laces. It makes me wonder if humans are not supposed to sit on their butts.
People believe it is the patties in fast food that make people fat rather than the chips, buns and soft drink.
If hyper-carnivore diets can become more popular worldwide it could reinvigorate New Zealand's meat industry. There is quite a bit of research going into this currently and some doctors and nutritionists are starting to come around to this idea after seeing significant health improvements in patients who actively consume plain meats with few or no carbohydrates.
Looking at it again it's not that cheap. Today I bought at Countdown 100% NZ Free Farmed pork belly boneless slices at $29.30 kg ($14.78 for a pack) plus 100% NZ grass fed lamb shoulder chop at $18.90kg ($15.25 for a pack) so it seemed cheaper but wasn't as a bit like comparing apples with oranges there. Lamb is a poorer cut and has some bone.
I have seen some of the pork chops selling for cheaper but it may have been a special at $10 a kg.
Cut all the other crap and you don't need to worry too much about the meat price.
Not sure the meat only diet is very 2022 Zach! I agree though, I would go with meat all day long over the hyper-processed vegan alternative. I do care about the treatment of the animal though. Unfortunately the cheaper the meat the more likely it led a horrible life.
I was brought up on Kahawai and that's still my favourite, it's so good for you, easy to catch as well. You just have to treat it correctly when caught.
I had beef heart and boiled eggs for brunch today. Heart was only $7.99kg from New World. I went to New World to find beef liver which I think tastes better than lamb liver. Only $5.99 kg and freezes well. So you can eat a lot of meat quite cheaply. Our ancestors would carefully portion the organ meats out to everyone after a kill like handing out vitamin pills (citation needed, lol)
Bang per buck meat and eggs are far superior to any other food. If you found a plant that had the same nutrient, mineral, vitamin density as a lamb chop it would be hailed as a miracle, wonder, food.
Those that argue speciously that arable land such as surrounds Auckland should be used for agriculture or horticulture are just pulling the wool over our eyes: that land is and should be used exclusively for residential sub-divisions to house all the unskilled immigrants that will again flood into NZ once borders open.
Housing is NZ's largest industry and that should take priority.
I can't help but feel the NZ wool industry is missing a trick by not playing on the ideological biases of the current government & the Greens ...
.... lobbying them for assistance , an advertising blitzkrieg across Europe , to buy 100 % Pure NZ Wool products ... all natural , no fossil fuels , organic wool from Godzone ...
Just because this article is about sheep and it is Friday.
Time for an old classic Aussie love ballad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZf41UudAbI
"The counter-balancing fact is that each newly emitted molecule of methane still causes warming that would not occur if it were not emitted."
This is maybe a fact and the amount of warming that is likely to occur is vastly overstated. It is quite possible conjecture but specified as fact by IPCC and other scientists who have been asked to prove that man made CO2 is almost the sole contributor to global warming.
... I think that's a common assumption , due to the narrative that if we dont halt CO2 emissions / increases by 2050/2100 ( pick a year to suit ) the earth will warm up by 1.5/3.5'c ( pick a temperature rise to suit ) and the worlds oceans will rise by 1 metre ...
A constructive dialogue , which doesn't switch people's attention off would be : the world is warming , it might be juiced by our actions , we need to get our ass into gear , and reduce the amount of crud we're pouring into the natural environment ...
Hey Gummy,keep eating those tux bikkies & offer bagfulls to those greenies who use selective data for their end of the world 5,10 15 year predictions (pick a year)to gum up their crap based on ideology rather than science.Weather change as we are experiencing now is no different to what was happening years ago,its called cyclic & we happen to be in this cycle at present- it all depends how far back you go with your data-History repeating itself?.Regards
... it is a fact that we are pouring heaps of pollutants ( CO2 , plastics , agricultural fertilizers & pesticides ) into the environment ... whether or not some of this is raising worldwide temperatures , or accelerating a natural warming cycle , is not the point to me :
We're dirty birds , we're shitting in our nest ... and need to take steps to cleaning up our act ...
Well written Keith - an accurate assessment. A couple of other things I would add. Sheep (& cattle) farmers in the hill country suffer a disproportionate impact from many of the environmental regulations. For example fencing of waterways and wetlands and regulations on indigenous biodiversity/SNAs. A lot of these farms are low labour resource and struggling with the increase in compliance requirements. Conversely, a lot of larger scale corporate intensive farms have deeper pockets for the army of consultants, auditors, lawyers required. But they too are struggling. There are increasing numbers of traditional family farmers with a strong environmental ethos exiting farming and this trend will increase if emissions taxes come in. Our landscapes and ecosystems have evolved over the past 150 years alongside introduced grazing mammals like sheep and goats. We are seeing many situations where removing that grazing has significant, and in some cases disastrous consequences, on the natural environment. Particularly spread of weeds. Sheep play a major role in keeping weeds at bay and reducing fire risk. The public of New Zealand and politicians need to think very carefully about the consequences of losing farming families and grazing animals.
The future of sheep is interesting. The ongoing decline as described has been through other landuses taking over land – the biggest numbers loss was with dairy conversions. Alongside forestry and Dairy there is natural reversion as hard land becomes uneconomic – outside my window today I look over hills that in the last 15 years have significantly regenerated to native – simple economics, lack of profit, has caused that – not a Pine tree, Dairy cow or any housing in sight. This trend of decline has been going on for decades so its not new and when you have a long trend like this it says something deeper is going on.
Wool seems a hard sell – I can’t see the cost of production falling – in fact rapid increases on the way and with less sheep, or shedding or hair sheep, the volume will lose relevance in a growing world. Yes there will be an industry but it has such a long way to go to make any financial impact.
The meat industry has done an amazing job in re-inventing itself in terms of markets and value and I personally feel lamb etc has less risk than dairy – a lot of dairy seems to go into the faceless ingredients business – my view and could be wrong here. I still think Dairy will be very important to NZ – just commenting on risk.
A lot of the hard eroding land used to be breeding country or forestry. With environmental rules/sustainability etc this land is moving off the menu for everyone in a production sense. It also has very high costs in terms of running any landuse and with labour scarcity/costs etc rising its not really desired.
So we have production forestry and sheep/beef being pushed to compete for a smaller amount of land. Both can claim bright futures – I’m not going to enter that debate as I find any forecasts are best guess really and the future for each will be determined by the participants in how they approach markets – I’m positive on both sides.
One big issue is the engagement of many farmers – the top 25% are doing very well and around another 25% don’t make much but work hard and could rise to match the top 25%. This is reflected in the recent B and L levy vote – there was a lot of talk about farmers upset etc etc. Well just over 50% of Sheep and beef farmers even bothered to vote and of that only about 3% said no to B and L – in effect 1.5% total unhappy with 50% not interested in voicing an opinion – this is reflected in industry engagement – the silent 50% are never seen.
The discussions I have with the top 25% group are they want to pull up the next 25% up but have given up on the other 50% - the best thing is for them to go – to succeed in the future will require engagement in R and D results, markets and change – this goes for all primary industries.
From my observations I don’t worry about the sheep industry – the good farmers I deal with tell me they are more excited now about the future than ever before. I know no one in the forest industry who wants to see the end of sheep and beef – we need both industries and the potential area that may go too trees is not going to break the sheep industry. The top 25% of farmers are rushing to incorporate trees into their businesses anyway.
On a different note the announcement in the budget to plant 10,000 ha for biomass is puzzling. For short rotation biomass trees to have a chance of success commercially you need to be very close to plants, have very easy land to allow full mechanisation ie not hill country. This is misguided as the forest industry has worked all this out – biomass only works as part of a timber crop. If I was a farmer I would be more worried about this as it will all be on really good land. Ag industry processors converting from coal boilers will be happy with this corporate welfare!!!
Well said Jack lumber ,as I am sure you are well aware I promote forestry mixed with livestock. Anyone who is involved in this industry and hasn't realized that integrating forestry within their livestock enterprise are not thinking future opportunity.
And I would like to add that just leaving land to revert is fine if you have no further use for it and can find other means to live. But for many of us this is not possible including much IWI land. Many just assume that back country can just be abandoned, no problem, but the reality is there is opportunity for ,particularly, remote Maori land to plant exotic trees to create carbon sinks, which creates internal income for use in local Hapu etc. I personally encourage this use of what I term " waste land" for this purpose. This must be a better way to go than buying carbon from other countries, when we have all this land that needs to be afforested.
Agree Hans
Im run off my feet with farmers realizing the opportunity and diving in - in a planned and measured way as they should. Others are catching up with your thoughts and ideas!!!
As per Keiths earlier articles the penny has really dropped over how permanent exotic could really assist them - big changes in thoughts going on there.
100% agree
For once Iwi have a chance to get a real return and I cant believe how so many liberal urban "intellectuals" are up in arms about this. I was on a web presentation with Iwi and these groups and it struck me what institutional racism actually is - not intentional but they just couldn't accept that Iwi want to do this and be self sufficient instead of getting handouts from the Crown.
Likewise sending money offshore to plant exotic trees elsewhere is completely mad plus hypocritical.
So do mangroves.
There have been attempts to process it , not feasible back then . Worth a revisit, especially if the leave and small branches could be made into stock food. (pelletized ). also a excellent nurse crop for Natives. I planted a couple of hundred in a gorse patch , unfortunately have not had time to go back and release them, so either a good surprise , or a disappointment when I get around to it .
My brother is flat out 7 days a week advising and organising planting for Iwi. Yesterday, I drove through a 25yo block, planted and pruned by a Iwi trust, so not a new thing. Just now the economics got a lot better.
I don't think the general public see sheep and beef farming as bad, it's the intensive dairy that's attracting negative attention.
Biomass plantation would be coppicing Ecu or similar, close to the user plant, and probably part of the waste water treatment. 10000 Ha nationwide is hardly farm threatening, but would tend to be flat land,yes . Very successful trial at oringi freezing works, now the works is closed, unfortunately.
We welcome your comments below. If you are not already registered, please register to comment.
Remember we welcome robust, respectful and insightful debate. We don't welcome abusive or defamatory comments and will de-register those repeatedly making such comments. Our current comment policy is here.