Lambs need to be worth $100, not $58, if sheep farming is to survive in New Zealand, Wairarapa meat and fibre chairman Alan Stuart told a Federated Farmers annual meeting in Masterton on Monday evening. He said 2007-2008 has been "one of the most difficult years & since the Great Depression inthe 1930s". "Collapsed production capacity from the drought and stagnant and collapsed farm-gate prices have made farming really tough," Mr Stuart said. He said a 16kg fattened lamb would need to be worth $100 at the works, if lamb fattening was to compete for land with dairy support and grain prices. Store lambs would need to have a value of $60, and winter-fed lambs $150. If prices don't change Mr Stuart picked an "enormous switch" into competing farm products with higher prices with "extremely dire consequences for our industry and markets". He said he recalled the words at the start of the season that "fundamentally, prospects are good". Mr Stuart calculates if the New Zealand dollar were to drop to US 62 cents (its 20-year average) farmers would get an extra $25. A mega-merger of meat companies was expected to add $15, bringing close to the extra $42 needed for a $100 return to farmers. "It is feasible, but not without some radical changes being made." The Wairarapa Federated Farmers endorsed Mr Stuart's remit that the national body continue lobbying the Government to change its policy of managing inflation through the Official Cash Rate, which pushes up interest rates and Mr Stuart says the New Zealand dollar. "We live in eternal hope." Meanwhile, dead ewes over winter are still likely despite drought-breaking rain over April and May, according to Mr Stuart. He said welcome rain last month was still "far too late two months too late" to help replenish damaged pastures and feed stock up for winter. "Last year some farms had huge ewe losses 20 to 25 per cent of your flock." The grass that has grown has been "short, low-fibre grass; it's like us trying to live on lettuce, it just goes straight through them". "At this time of year, ewes need heaps of fibre & (the rain) has just come too late and winter is going to be tough this year."
