With sheep and beef farming under pressure from dairy for land use and financiers looking for more profit from the sector, leadership is needed to plan a way forward in the future.
Two years ago the MIAG group challenged the meat industry to unite and rationalise to a leaner more profitabe model. They had some success but failed to convince the status quo of farmers to create significant change.
The momentum was lost and with rapidly falling numbers, "the last man standing system" has re-emerged. After two unsuccessful attempts SFF asks Federated Farmers for help to develop a future for the embattled sheep and beef industry reportsThe ODT.
Bruce Wills suggests that Federated Farmers were treated to strikingly divergent views as idealism faced hard commercial reality. Silver Fern Farms Chief Executive, Keith Cooper put up a differing vision for the industry's future to that proposed by Lincoln University's, Professor Caroline Saunders.
On one hand, Professor Saunders implored farmers to get with the clean-green programme and embrace premium markets. She also pushed the need to embrace sustainability in order to retain market access, saying NZ needed to trumpet its Emissions Trading Scheme to market just how good we were at low carbon farming.
But Keith Cooper put forward some hard commercial realities to us, stating that the buyers had‘never heard of ETS' and didn't really care. These buyers will not pay a premium for carbon neutral food. They'll welcome it as a tick-box item but won't pay more for our meat protein and that's the rub for farmers.
"NZ has jumped every hoop, down to making a profit per lamb of just $9, if we're lucky. Professor Saunders was unable to show how jumping more hoops will achieve greater profitability. That ‘P' word is absolutely vital for our industry's survival.
"Yet Keith Cooper told us that the T150 campaign, being $150 for a good mid-season lamb is achievable. Yet to get there farmers will have to invest into research as well as embracing genetic technologies.
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.