Wairarapa farmers would face delays at the peak of killing season if Dannevirke's Oringi Freezing Works closed, Federated Farmers Meat and Wool chairman Alan Stuart said. A hundred jobs may be on the line as meat-processing company PPCS discussed the future of its sheep processing plant at Oringi near Dannevirke today. Acompany spokesman said the meeting with staff would consider the "viability of the plant going forward". The plant employs 100 permanent staff, along with seasonal workers.New Zealand Meat Workers and Related Trades Union Inc national president Mike Nahu said it had been told PPCS would be putting a "proposal to all workers". He said PPCS had been keeping their "cards pretty close to their chest". An industry source said that in his opinion Oringi was a "dead duck" with "productivity too low and costs too high", but whether it closed might be dependent on the forecast for the bobbycalf season. The closure of the meat works would come as a huge blow to Dannevirke, with the district still recovering from job losses at the Norsewear clothing plant in 2007 and the Feltex carpet plant in 2006. Mr Stuart said while stock would be killed at another plant not far north, the predicted closure "means a bit less killing capacity at the peak of the season". "It just means you can't kill your lambs at the peak of their condition," Mr Stuart said. Mr Stuart, recalling the "bad old days" when strikes were common, said a backlog of animals created at the works created "all kinds of predicaments". "It stuffs up all your feed planning," Mr Stuart said. "You're trying to set orderly planning so your biggest, early lambs are killed first at the start of the season, then the next lot after that, then the next lot after that a progressive, orderly plan of production and marketing. "If you get a hiccup your next lot of lambs suffered and (eventually) you're left with a whole lot of lambs and very little feed to fatten them on." If, in the worst-case scenario, lambs were held into autumn, animal health issues become a problem with fungal growths in the pasture, and "the next thing you're short of feed into winter and your next crop of lambs suffers".
