Meat & Wool director gets a roasting from farmers

Sheep and beef farmers in north Rodney, fed up with rising on-farm costs and diminishing returns, grilled Northern North Island Meat & Wool NZ director James Parson at Millbrook Station’s recent farm field day.

Monitor farm management committee chair Steve Dill called for Meat & Wool to provide stronger leadership when it came to ensuring farmers were paid a fair price for their product. He and other farmers were frustrated to be getting only around 30 percent of the retail value of their lamb.

However, Mr Parsons said that it was up to farmers to transform the value chain, which could lead to major farm gate gains.

“Meat & Wool gets criticised for its lack of leadership, but you farmers need to follow,” he said. “You are often your own worst enemies as you can be very hard to lead.”

Mr Dill, annoyed that live lambs from his Kaipara Hills farm were trucked to Hawkes Bay for killing, wants to see regional meat works established that operate separately to the meat companies.

“I’d like Meat & Wool to be taking a lead and telling us just how we can influence the meat companies or coming up with a viable alternative,” says Mr Dill.

Mr Parsons, who runs a sheep and beef farm in the Hokianga, said he sympathised with farmers’ frustrations over meat companies.

“Meat & Wool is trying to discuss this and knock some sense into them.”

He said that profitability was a serious issue for sheep and beef farmers, with income from farms hitting a 50-year low in the 2008 season, while land prices continued to rise.

“In-put prices have also risen by 37 percent since 2001, while farm gate profits have only increased by two percent.”
Meat & Wool NZ was working on reducing farm tariffs by 30 percent within five years, and was “going into bat” on behalf of farmers over free trade agreements, currently with Korea.