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The Muster- Don Morrison: Red Meat Prices Look Set To Stay Buoyant · The Muster on Hokonui

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the House of Fun Now I've come of
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: age Welcome to the House of.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Fun Welcome to the muster on Hokanui, the house of fun,
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: the less debatable.
• 0:18
  Speaker 3: The group is Madness. Our next guest will know all
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: about them, Don Morrison, farming out at Willowbank. Howie, good afternoon.
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: You'll be all over these guys like a rash.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Kia ora, Andy. Yeah, I know some of their music.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: And actually, my wife, Bridget, she's a big Madness fan
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: from her varsity days back in London. yet know that
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: they're touring this year. And, hey, Aps, it's a house
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: of fun. It's a different ballgame when the sun shines,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: isn't it?
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: It is a different ballgame. Just quickly back to Madness, though.
• 0:46
  Speaker 3: You would have been a fan of the Young Ones
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: on TV, Neil, Vivian, Rick and Co, and Madness always
• 0:52
  Speaker 3: seemed to pop up as the band during the episodes.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely. That was when I was at Lincoln at Varsity, Andy,
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: and it used to be Friday night. down to the Carlton,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: then back to Munster Palace to watch the young ones
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: on TV. It must have been 10 or 11 o'clock
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: it was on, I think.
• 1:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're starting to show your age now, but I'll
• 1:13
  Speaker 3: take your word for it, Oz. I think it was
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: about Form 3, watching it on video because it was
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: on too late for me. But nonetheless, like you say,
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: it's a changer with the weather. It certainly puts everything
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: in a bit more of a context at the moment.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, look, a different world, Andy, and we get a
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: few good days. Animals are happy, things are drying up,
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: and it's just got a nice feel. I'm not going
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: to say we're going to forget that bit of rubbish
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: we went through in September, but, you know, you can
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: put it out of your mind a bit and get
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: on with the job now.
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: A lot of areas struggling with feed covers at the moment.
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: Where are your base there, Howie? Can you see a
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: recovery going on there? The ground's getting through at the
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: worst of it?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Oh, look, it's going to be slow, so obviously there's
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: going to be impacts on growth rates, which will impact
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: right through to weanings. But, yeah, the grass is growing.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: We've got a couple of paddocks with the hogget blocks.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: The hoggets are just sort of moving around that have
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: been saved. And there's some grass where the paddock would
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: use in lands that's been growing, but they've just been
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: eating it as fast as it'll grow.
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Just a state of play at the moment. But you're
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: not changing anything based on the way the spring's been
• 2:20
  Speaker 3: to date?
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to, I got a, I was too, yeah,
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: a bit greedy this year in the area of crop
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: we put in for the winter grazing, cut it back
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: a bit, where we'll be just elevating it a bit
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: next year. You know, when you rely on those really
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: heavy yields, which we've been getting, and you just can't
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: quite always guarantee them. So, yeah, that put us under pressure.
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: There was a lot of things we got wrong in management.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: You know, the We didn't really have the feed we
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: needed and we went in really tight. Anyone who drives
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: past will see that in our covers. But we've got
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: a bit right historically and that's the shelter we've got
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: on the place. And I guess the emphasis we've put
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: on lamb survival in our breeding programme through the last
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: 25 years, Andy, it's probably been one of our biggest
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: selection tools with our animals as far as repeatability and heritability.
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Animals we use, breeding values we don't sell or keep
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: or advocate using anything that's got a negative BV for
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: lamb survival. And I think it probably got us out
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: of jail this year. So while we had some losses,
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: it's actually not going to be a bad lambing. We
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: start tailing tomorrow and I would say we'll still have
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: a pretty good number of lambs.
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Interesting you say that, but particularly regarding the crop, do
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: you think that rationale is based on the spring that
• 3:40
  Speaker 3: we endured? And if it was, say, a better spring
• 3:42
  Speaker 3: that we've been accustomed to in the past, then crops
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: wouldn't come into it, putting extra in for next season?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it always goes back, Andy, if you've
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: got that little bit of extra crop, you can keep
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: animals on another week or 10 days if you've got
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: that option. And whether it's a good year or a
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: bad year, that's really good, because in a good year...
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: You can actually just be putting condition on with that
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  Speaker 1: fodder beet. You can really have that grass ahead to
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: put them straight onto and lamb. And when you've got
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: a bad season, gee, you really needed it this year. So,
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: you know, we paid the price. We just put a
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: couple of hectares in less. You know, two more hectares
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: of fodder beet would have, you know, fed a lot
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: of animals for another week or 10 days.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: As far as tailing, like you say, tomorrow, how long
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: does that take to get over and done with?
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: Oh, well, we've just started lambing the hogget, so we
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: sort of do a hogget round. We've got a young girl, Eleanor,
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: who's doing all the hoggets, but we'll be there to
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: help her out. And we'll just get out about 9 o'clock.
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: We do about 1,000 a day, you know, 1,200 or
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: 1,300 if we sort of rock into it a bit,
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  Speaker 1: but it's just the team here working away. But we're
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: really just going to start on the older, we'll get
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the older lambs done this week, the early lambing ones
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  Speaker 1: from August, and then probably kick into it in a
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  Speaker 1: bigger way next week.
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: So those earlier lambs, they would have taken a check
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: with the weather, I'd imagine?
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: The earlier lambs were okay because we actually lambed them
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: on the hoggart blocks and had good feed, saved the
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: feed that we'd normally allocate to them and then pushed
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: them over. So, no, they're actually looking okay. It's probably
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: more just some of the September lambs that got that check.
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: You know, there's what the storm kills or the weather
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: kills and then there's what the mud, you know, takes
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: its toll on. So you drive around and... you're still
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: picking up the odd dead lamb from some form of infection.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: So those bearer paddocks, that's what you've got to deal with.
• 5:32
  Speaker 3: You've had the shearers in earlier on today doing the
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: ram hoggets. The wool industry is an interesting one at
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: the moment. It ebbs and flows. It's very much a
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: Manhattan skyline of prices. A correction a couple of weeks ago,
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: but still, Howie, when you look at the industry as
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: to where it was and to where it is now,
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: it's a plus.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Well, I can look back to the price 30 years
• 5:54
  Speaker 1: ago when I came back from overseas, Andy, and say
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that we're not even anywhere near that price. But certainly
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: in terms of where we've been the last four or
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: five years, yeah, it actually feels quite positive. You know,
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: we were very happy with the prices we got last
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: year around that $ 5, $ 6, because it means you're making
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: a little bit of money from your sharing. And of course,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: when you've got that great land price that we're getting
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: at the moment, You know, every extra bit per kilo
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: certainly adds up with the wool. So these, we're only
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: sharing the ram hoggets and sale ram hoggets, Andy, so
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: we're not sharing them to make some money. It's just
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: for the presentation as we get ready for the sale
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: season sort of end of November and then on through
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: the summer.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Now, of course, Howie, you're an Alliance Board Director until recently.
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: Looking at the lamb schedule going forward, and logic suggests
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: it's not going to go below a 10th.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: I've certainly heard that I think what you're dealing with
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: is the reality of some pretty strong international markets at
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: the moment and then we're going to have the same
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: old procurement pressure that has existed for the last number
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: of years so it'll be meat companies chasing animals they
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: may not want to and they'll have a market price
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: they're prepared to pay and then there'll be maybe a
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: little bit extra that they're going to have to pay
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: to source animals and of course that eats into margins
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: but I believe the margins are reasonably solid at the moment.
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: Do you think there's still a concern though that overcapacity
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: in the red meat industry hasn't been addressed in New
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Zealand properly?
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: No, that overcapacity still exists and it's probably been masked
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: by the stronger prices that all the processors have been
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: able to get in the market but no, overcapacity is
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: still there and that really comes down to each individual
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: processor has to look at what its capacity is and
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: you know, see what they do. So I know from
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: that experience in close Smithfield, it was the right thing
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: to do. It added profit to the bottom line. And,
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: you know, it's tough because it's 400 or 500 jobs
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: in Timaru that aren't there any longer. But the company
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: has to make the right decision around that capacity. So, yeah,
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: that issue is still there, Andy. And I'd suggest it's
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: still a big issue.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: So you wouldn't be surprised if we see another procurement
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: war this season?
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think you'll get a procurement war at
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: some stage. When you say a procurement war, it's just
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: that competition effect. I suspect you're going to see that
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: right from the start of the season. With the spring
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: we've had here, animals are going to be low. Processors
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: are going to want to get throughput. They're going to
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: have commitments. They've got to meet in terms of contracts.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: So I think all it might do is keep that
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: schedule price reasonably high in the first part of the
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: season anyway.
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: Just finally, the All Blacks Wallabies at Eden Park. The
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: All Blacks haven't lost to Australia there since 1986. We
• 8:48
  Speaker 3: just look at the other figure, haven't lost at Eden
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: Park full stop since 1994 to France. This game will
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: be an interesting one, especially the return game over in Aussie.
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: This Wallabies team, you feel like they're building some confidence?
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, they're building some confidence. Under Kiss, they've had four
• 9:05
  Speaker 1: or five wins in a row, and that was a
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: very good performance. win they've had i look at some
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: of the league converts they've got over and they're bringing
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: over i think they'll only get stronger i think we're
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: probably uh under you know the competitive nature of it
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: we're underestimating the positive um that we picked up from
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: that south african tour so there's a lot of experience
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: a lot of hard rugby i think the all blacks
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: are actually going to go into this um into this
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: test well prepared and i don't probably have the concerns
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: that um that others do, or that I'm hearing in
• 9:36
  Speaker 1: the media, and I think we're well prepared for it.
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: Good on you, Howie. Always appreciate your time.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: Cheers, Andy. Look forward to next time.
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: Don Morrison, based at Willowbank. You're listening to the muster
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: up next from Dairy NZ, Mitch Cooper.