Record prices for prime lambs at southern stock sales are
giving farmers something to smile about after last year's
shocking season when up to a million lambs died in freezing
conditions.
The rebuilding of storm-decimated ewe flocks could be
hampered by competing record mutton prices which are
returning $100-plus a ewe to farmers - similar prices to
prime lambs.
Given the sheep industry's well documented problems,
labelling yourself specialist sheep farmers might not be
considered the most inspiring of titles, but it is one the
Alderton family wears with pride.
Sheep farmers will be stocking up on penicillin to try to
stave off disease in lambs which survived last week's
unprecedented storms, but could still die in the next five to
six weeks.
The world's affluent people may be buying New Zealand's meat
and wool, but a leading farmer is questioning why that is not
making sheep farmers as wealthy as their dairying cousins.
There is no simple answer to reverse the continual erosion
of the sheep industry, but as agribusiness editor Neal
Wallace reports, in the second part of a report on the
sector's future, those solutions require a change in
behaviour.
The adage "if you keep on doing what you have always
done you will always get the same result," could have been
written for the sheep industry. Agribusiness editor Neal
Wallace reports that unless there is change, the future for
the sheep industry looks bleak.
