TE WHANGAI NEWSLETTER SPRING 2018
Welcome, Spring again, with all the volatile moods of nature doing their best to test our strength of character.
As I write Te Whangai has just tipped out 5 inches over two days just as the recorded ewes start lambing! We consider that we have dodged a bullet as further north at Tutira they have had just on 12 inches which is devastating.
Such a timely reminder that with the good comes the bad and that's life, and although a poor autumn can cut your lambing potential by 10 or 15% it always feels so much worse when you actually have to put the dead ones out at the gate.
Most of this year will go down as very memorable for all the right reasons but not forgetting that by and large it was the luck of the draw if you got a thunderstorm or not in Nov/Dec and for quite a few of us the spring was non existent and by December the outlook was grim as store lambs traded at $50-$60 again. We let a small number go at low prices but gritted our teeth and hung on till good rains came and the lamb prices since then have been the stuff of fairy tales!
With good hoggets fetching up to $250 it must be a realistic expectation to see 2th ewes at $300 in the new year, if there are any around!
It almost seems like an Ovine Ponzi scheme when you can buy a scanned twinning ewe for $190 and sell her and her twins 3weeks after lambing for $360. Long may it last!
With sheep meat moving readily to the market and no stock pile building, the short to medium term prospects remain good however I recently was told that lamb had been pulled off the menu at a Pacific Island resort due to the cost.
I know of a project to aim at a $1500 lamb! clearly not mainstream but may be not as far fetched as you think if you can extract full value for all the co products, niche market everything with a very specific story, use genetics and management to ensure that the taste and texture is unique and who knows...you can pay $80/kg for crayfish!
Meanwhile, China continues to pay above the odds for the lower value cuts which is lifting the overall average price but given their standard behaviour you wouldn't bet on that lasting. It seems China is also apparently supplementing lamb with mutton of less than 24kg carcase wgt! so I would pick the mutton market has some upside in it yet.
Just as in the late 1980's when meat was worth nothing and wool was paying the bills, we are thankful sheep are a dual purpose animal and while the roles have been reversed for some time there would seem to be a wave of recognition coming for the credentials of wool.
Finally the fine wool prices have become sustainable and indeed are at incredible levels but the chasm between fine and coarse wool prices tells me that it is more about fashion, branding and marketing the consumer product rather than the specific attributes of wool. Some of the new felted carpet yarns coming out of ChCh are stunning and absolutely unique but now the disruptive channels to market must be developed to leapfrog the traditional retail stores.
Our ongoing investment in side sampling the fleece of every individual ram means it is quite feasible for clients to look at reducing the fibre diameter of their flock.
SIL are developing a wool quality index which will incorporate not just weight but also micron, yield and bulk, so we are well placed to utilise the 5 years of data we have collected so far.
The media have been very slow to pick up on the micro fibre issue in synthetic clothing but now with that and the realisation of the damage that plastic is doing they are finally onto it and we might be getting somewhere.
The next big thing looming is the awareness around the toxicity of fire retardants.
The US state of Maine has just passed a groundbreaking law banning the use of all chemical flame retardants in upholstered furniture, despite the efforts to over turn the law by none other than, the State Governor, the department for Environmental Protection and chemical manufacturers!!
A quarter of US states have considered similar legislation this year.
And here is another one... heard of MMVF?.. Man Made Vitreous Fibres, (pink batts and 'mineral' wool insulation etc) which were created to replace asbestos.
They are being cited in serious health problems such as cancer and lung disease yet they remain the preferred products going into our own government housing programme... because they are cheap!!!
It will be a massive lost opportunity if we carn't capitalise on these opportunities.
I don't think I can remember a time when there are so many issues, both global and domestic, that potentially could have a profound effect on our farming returns.
Brexit is a huge unknown and Mr Trump's rough-up of the status quo and, depending on which way you look at it, his protection of US industry or his suppression of China's growing global trade dominance, both could have consequences for NZ.
Widespread drought in Aussie, Europe and the US will also effect us but just how, who knows.
Domestically?? Last year I asked the question...what was the outlook for agriculture if the global desire for political change swept a new mob into the Beehive. Well now we know and it's not pretty!
Our 'Dalmatian Maori', as Mr Jones proudly refers to himself, combined with the scam of Carbon Trading looks like a dangerous combination.
Using the 'right tree' right place, right reason' principle I would strongly argue that if Carbon Sequestration to offset green house gas omissions is the reason (and Jones says it is) then planting pine trees on good sheep and beef country is the wrong tree in the wrong place.
The recent Productivity Commission report is inferring that 25% of sheep and beef land needs to be in trees!
While the intent might be that only the very unproductive country will be planted, the reality is that with such generous incentives and the prospect of la la land carbon prices, forestry companies are buying up everything they can get their hands on, out bidding anything that can be offered for sheep and beef and we will once again see vast tracts of farmland go into pine trees, further destroying rural communities.
Of course sheep and beef farmers can, will and maybe should plant hardwood and long life cycle trees in remote unproductive areas where pine trees would be uneconomic to harvest, and they too can ride the carbon wave of fantasy and have the best of both worlds.
FE - Our decision to take a two pronged approach to this development has proved worthwhile as the progeny of a high FE ram we purchased from one outside stud have failed miserably in our environment while we have got some excellent progeny from a multi sire mating using Landcorp high FE sires across a flock of Te Whangai bred ewes in a hot FE area.
We ran these ram lambs under a 'drench on demand' regime and got 50 out of 90 right through to April with only a weaning drench in November. We then sporidesmin tested the best looking 11 at a dose rate of .3, which is not high by FE testing standards but is equivalent to a serious field challenge. We were thrilled to have nothing show clinical signs of FE and from the GGT blood test, 6 showed no reaction at all.
By using known sires, the actual sporidesmin test results and DNA we have got SIL breeding values on these ram hgts and there will be some useful animals available in November. Now we will go about building an FE tolerant sub flock around this genetic mix and endeavour to retain the strong Te Whangai traits.
Biosecurity - is a particularly hot issue because of M Bovis but recent attention has also turned been on drench resistance which seems to be becoming prevalent. There is possibly more lamb trading going on than in the past and more grazing off ewe hgts (insist on a FECRT on the grazers flock) as farmers look for more flexible and profitable systems but be vigilant with bought in sheep.. you never know who has been sneaking drench capsules into ewes and developing a disaster for themselves and anyone buying their sheep.
Here's the beauty of parasite resilient sheep, if you don't have to drench so often (and ewes, not ever) drench resistant worms are no more of a problem than any other worms!
Beef & Lamb Genetics conference - Stand out best presentation and take home messsage was from Dorian Garrick..Gene Editing must be allowed to proceed! It will no doubt be accepted in human health circles and is touted as the only way to eradicate our furry pests by 20..whatever. It is going to be used by our major competitors and we will be left behind if we don't adopt the technology. We could have tailless sheep in one generation, the gene sequence is already known!
Tit bits I have picked up this year - Strategy is good but culture eats strategy for breakfast.
- Fish rots from the head...examine your culture.
- Change leaps it doesn't crawl.
- Companies rarely die from moving too fast, usually too slow.
- It's not the big guys that eat the small guys..it's the fast ones.
- Switzerland produces 1.7% of the worlds watches but captures 50% of the value of all watches sold in the world.
- Pets don't smell on wool carpet..only synthetic
- It takes 225lt of water to produce 1kg of tomatoes outdoors, just 8 lt in Netherlands glasshouse!
-Tourism? the next thing is 'Virtual reality'.. take a trip without leaving the farm!
- Statistics are like mini skirts.. what they reveal is interesting, what they hide is fascinating!
Good luck for the rest of the season and look forward to catching up in November.
Hamish and Harry
del@wnation.net.n