Lamb prices have dropped to levels not seen for six years, taking more than 20 percent off sheep farmers’ incomes.<\/p>\n
Lamb schedules have fallen in recent weeks with some companies now offering just $6.50 a kilo – having been $8.30 two seasons ago, and $7.20 last year.<\/p>\n
The drop is being put down to continued soft demand from key markets like China – and an influx of Australian lamb flooding markets.<\/p>\n
Manawat\u016b based Baker Ag consultant Gary Massicks said the drop was predicted 6 months ago, but it had been much “harder and faster” than anyone expected.<\/p>\n
Normally, prices held up until about March when more lambs came onto the market, he said.<\/p>\n
“The situation is scary and farm budgets are in the red, and this is all at a time when farmers have more lambs on the ground and could maybe have hoped to capitalise on that.”<\/p>\n
A large number of ewes had twins this season because they went to the ram in top condition, but twin lambs are smaller than a good strong single.<\/p>\n
“The flip side is we have more lambs, but doing a couple of numbers with a couple of clients, the more lambs don’t make up for the drop in price. So 20 percent (drop) on income, this one (budget) in front of me, store lambs last year were $110, we’re forecasting less than $90 this season, so you know dropping income 20 to 25 percent you’ve got a lot of red numbers in the budget.”<\/p>\n
Asked if there was light in the future, Massicks said there was always hope.<\/p>\n
Dairy seemed to be picking up again and sheep and beef often followed the dairy trend, but he said the light, when it came, would not be until next winter and it was “not a very strong light”. There was a lot to get through before next winter, he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s gloomy and something many people are talking about, but we’re saying to clients ‘stay in the fight’. Decisions need to be well made so next year’s production isn’t compromised.<\/p>\n
“Let’s start thinking about that already, and meanwhile try and sell every lamb we can.”<\/p>\n
Farmers who reared lambs for finishing often had a “get out of jail” card where if lamb prices were lower, or they were running fewer young stock, they would sell surplus grass as silage, he said.<\/p>\n
But he said this year dairy farmers did not need the silage and did not have the cash to purchase it anyway.<\/p>\n
rnz<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Lamb prices have dropped to levels not seen for six years, taking more than 20 percent off sheep farmers’ incomes. Lamb schedules have fallen in recent weeks with some companies now offering just $6.50 a kilo – having been $8.30 two seasons ago, and $7.20 last year. The drop is being put down to continued […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":8344,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[222,174],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8343","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latest-news","category-nz-news"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8343","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8343"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8343\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8345,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8343\/revisions\/8345"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thebuzz.apnanetwork.co.nz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}