Alliance chief Owen Pooles response to farmers criticism of the meat industry seems harsh and unhelpful.
Blaming the exchange rate, and being too reliant on meat is hardly helpful for farmers with a average cash surplus of $88 dollars a week.
The reality is even with the 3 meat products selling at record prices, farmers are still not making a profit.
As a major player in the industry, his tone should be more concilatory especially to other co-operative farmers to find a more workable solutuion.
However at $10,000 a tonne, producing sheep milk powder is worth looking at, as long as the meat industry has nothing to do with marketing it!
Meat company Alliance Group is investigating the merits of sheep milking to help its shareholders develop a new income stream reports The ODT.
Alliance chairman Owen Poole yesterday pulled few punches in defending the meat industry from claims it was in crisis and dysfunctional, but said sheep farmers were too reliant on income from meat due to low returns from wool, hence the investigation into sheep milking.
Yesterday, in Milton, he told about 110 shareholders that while the sheep-meat industry had come in for some heavy criticism for its lack of performance, prospects for sheep meat were bright due to a global shortage.
The retail price of lamb last year was at its highest, having increased 50% in the past five years, but those benefits were blunted by an unfavourable exchange rate.
Chief executive Grant Cuff said the company would make a profit this year and make pool and dividend payments.
Based on current exchange rates, Mr Cuff forecast lamb prices in the coming season to be $4 to $5 a head higher than last season, mutton $10 to $12 and cattle $20 to $30 higher, and deer $10 to $15 a head lower.
Mr Cuff said the sheep-milking investigation was not a sign Alliance was about to build a milk-drying plant, but he said the meat co-operative was open-minded about its long-term involvement. But, with sheep-milk powder selling for $10,000 a tonne compared to bovine milk powder at $4800, Mr Cuff said it was looking attractive and warranted further investigation.
Ewes would lamb three times in two years and farmers would still have the same stocking rate and the same number of lambs to sell to meat companies as they did now.
2 Comments
Well said tired farmer. As someone who was at the above mentioned meeting I can report it was overwhelmingly positive. Quite a few new initives were announced like increased usage of robotics on the chain(with more in development), viascan yield grading being introduced for prime cattle, a carbon footprinting measure called hoofprint and an increase in the carcase wieght threshold to 21.5kg for lambs to qualify for yield/pool payments to name afew. All good positive stuff but because it doesnt fit the sky is falling mentality of the media it is unlikely to be printed.
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