Criticism of New Zealand's chilled lamb trade is often based on a lack of understanding of how the sector works. Sharyn Price seeks to educate.
I feel compelled to reply to Vicky Carthew's criticism of New Zealand's chilled lamb trade (ODT, 14.9.09). I suspect her letter is symptomatic of our increasing urban-rural divide.
Not only do some urbanites have a limited knowledge of how farming works but, worryingly, they feel eminently qualified to critique something they do not understand.
Here is a simple lesson in the basic biology of lamb supply for export.
It is lambing time on my North Otago farm right now, coinciding nicely with the dazzling display of daffodils that herald spring and increasing pasture growth for lactating ewes.
The first ewe lambed a shade early on August 27 and the last will probably do so around the end of this month.
There is the first hint of a spread of lambs for processing - different lambing dates - and that's just within one flock.
Some lambs are born as singles, but on my farm more than half will be born as triplets or quads.
Not surprisingly, under a natural pasture-based system with their mothers the singles grow fastest and multiples proportionally slower, depending on the number of siblings.
A single ram lamb on a high milk production ewe can put on more than 450 grams per day, which is why we will take our first draft of lambs straight off mum in November.
The slower growing multiples will gradually leave from December to February in a good year, but some may stay until April in a difficult season.
We also lamb our ewe hoggets (one-year-old ewes).
Their lambs are born a bit smaller and their milk production is lower than for adult ewes so hoggets lambs will be slower growing to weaning, and wean at lighter weights than the average ewe's lambs.
That is just another factor contributing to the natural spread of lambs for market.
We draft lambs to tight specifications for weight and fat cover, aiming for lean carcasses between 15kg and 19kg carcass weight for the chilled export meat market with which Vicky concerned herself.
Our farm typically spreads its lamb kill over four to six months, depending on climatic conditions.
Other farmers in our region with lower milk production ewes and lacking specialist lamb finishing crops may still be sending lambs later in April and May.
Now let's consider other farming regions and systems.
Farmers in the hill and high country know that spring comes later for them, so their ewes are mated later, too.
A proportion of finer woolled ewes will be mated to meat rams to produce lambs for sale to finishing farmers on lower country.
Not only are these animals born later, but they tend to be slower growing, thanks to lower ewe milk production and their fine wool genes.
My neighbour on the hill opposite has traded thousands of such animals this year, buying them to grow and kill as they reach the desired weights.
Conveniently for our export meat processors, he has animals available for sale in that gap from autumn to spring when farmers like me have none, nicely rounding off the 12-month supply for sale - that Vicky found so hard to believe - from a natural, free-range and grass-reared system.
I am not sure why Vicky would think that a spread of lambs for processing would require factory farming.
Nature is eminently suited to providing variation - it's the core stuff of biology.
Factories are better geared to turning out lots of identical units and that is actually what farmers find hardest.
It is true that there are peak months for lamb supply, but we have enough variation among our sheep, farming environments and farmer skills to ensure that there are no months without lambs for sale.
> Sharyn Price is a sheep farmer in North Otago.
