Latest / Best of Business / Jamie Mackay: The Country host on what record US beef prices mean for New Zealand's farmers

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Jamie Mackay: The Country host on what record US beef prices mean for New Zealand's farmers · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News Talk ZEDB. Follow
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  Speaker 1: this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Jamie McKay is with us host of the Country Jamie
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  Speaker 2: Good Evening.
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  Speaker 3: God a Ryan.
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  Speaker 2: Now, beef prices heading record highers in the US just
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  Speaker 2: in time for the barbecue season over there.
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  Speaker 3: Well, yeah, Americans, I think burgers, hamburgers all year round.
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  Speaker 3: That's what they want our beef for. But unbelievable prices
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  Speaker 3: in the US at the moment, Ryan, bodeswell for American
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  Speaker 3: consumers to continue to pay the base tariff rate of
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  Speaker 3: ten percent. That is, of course, if the base tariff
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  Speaker 3: rate stays at ten percent, that's another story for another day.
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  Speaker 3: But my US correspondent, a guy from Lexington, Kentucky, was
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  Speaker 3: on the show today. They had one thousand pounds stairs
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  Speaker 3: we'll just over one thousand pounds in imperial measurements, and
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  Speaker 3: they sold for over three thousand US per head. That's
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  Speaker 3: over five thousand New Zealand dollars per cattle beast. Now,
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  Speaker 3: I did some maths on this one. Those thousand and
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  Speaker 3: thirty eight pounds equate to four hundred and seventy two kilos,
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  Speaker 3: which equates to six dollars thirty eight are kilogram US dollars.
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  Speaker 3: Convert that to New Zealand dollars at a sixty cent
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  Speaker 3: exchange rate, you've got ten dollars sixty three and that
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  Speaker 3: is running round in the paddock that's on the hoof.
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  Speaker 1: Ryan.
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  Speaker 3: By the time you process that animal and get the
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  Speaker 3: yield at sixty percent I sixty percent meat, forty percent
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  Speaker 3: the rest is thrown away. That equates to seventeen dollars
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  Speaker 3: seventy per kilogram in New Zealand money. Currently, New Zealand
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  Speaker 3: farmers are being paid eight to eight dollars fifty a
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  Speaker 3: kilogram for beef, so they're paying enormous prices for beef
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  Speaker 3: in the US at the moment.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it sounds like it too, Jamie Beef and Lamb
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  Speaker 2: here and the Meat Industry Association pointing out some potential
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  Speaker 2: loopholes on the government's plan for a ban on farm
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  Speaker 2: to forestry conversions. What's happening with this, Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: Well, they're saying they need to tighten some of these
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  Speaker 3: loopholes because there's too many people sneaking through. And I'm
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  Speaker 3: with them on this. When I think we're almost shutting
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  Speaker 3: the stable door after the horse has bolted because the
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  Speaker 3: government made the announcement on the fourth of December last year.
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  Speaker 3: Down in Southland, there's been heaps of conversions happening, some
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  Speaker 3: going through the back door since then. So what they're
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  Speaker 3: saying is they want the government to extend the proposed
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  Speaker 3: mauratorium on whole farm conversions blanket planting of farms to
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  Speaker 3: all land classes, not just classes one to five. Otherwise,
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  Speaker 3: they're saying it's just going to have a too big
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  Speaker 3: an effect on the pastoral industry in this country. They're
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  Speaker 3: also saying, and this is another one, New Zealand's the
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  Speaker 3: only country in the world ryan aside from Kazakhstan, that
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  Speaker 3: places no restrictions on the use of forestry offsets. We're
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  Speaker 3: allowed hundred percent offsetting here for exalting plantings to go
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  Speaker 3: into the ets. No other country but Kazakhstan does that.
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  Speaker 3: And they're throwing some numbers out there just for good measure.
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  Speaker 3: They're saying since twenty seventeen, and the forestry people will
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  Speaker 3: probably argue against these, but they're saying since twenty seventeen,
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  Speaker 3: three hundred thousand hectares of whole sheep and beef farms
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  Speaker 3: have been sold to forestry interest, some of it, to
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  Speaker 3: be fair, is into production forestry. They're estimating a further
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  Speaker 3: fifty thousand hectares is going to go before these new
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  Speaker 3: rules take effect later this year. They're saying this could
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  Speaker 3: lead to a million hectares lost by the year twenty fifty.
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  Speaker 3: They're saying these land use changes could reduce livestock numbers
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  Speaker 3: by two and a half million stock units and shrinth
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  Speaker 3: the sheep and beef sectors grassland base by up to
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  Speaker 3: twenty percent. So they're not good numbers. Yes, the problem continues.
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  Speaker 2: Hey, what about fed farmers because we've spoken before about
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  Speaker 2: groundswell right behind pulling out of the Paris Agreement, but
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  Speaker 2: fed farmers not lobbying the government to do that.
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  Speaker 3: No, well fed farmers has gone into bat with other
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  Speaker 3: industry good bodies like dairy and z and BEF and
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  Speaker 3: LAMB on this one. President Wayne Langford is a fairly
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  Speaker 3: solid sort of thinker, to my way of thinking, said
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  Speaker 3: he sat in rooms with dairy company leaders who say
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  Speaker 3: that it could shave as much as three dollars off
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  Speaker 3: the dairy price a kilogram of milk solids, So why
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  Speaker 3: would we even be talking about it? On contrast, that
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  Speaker 3: Groundswell co leader Bryce Lawrence. I was going to say,
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  Speaker 3: he's a rugby referee. Hello Bryce, if you're listening, Bryce
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  Speaker 3: mackenzie isn't surprised. He said Federated Farmers normally take a
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  Speaker 3: more conservative line than they do and they could be
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  Speaker 3: working strategically with the government. He says, though, Federated Farmers
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  Speaker 3: had better be careful because they're a subscription paying organization.
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  Speaker 3: If they don't do what their members want, they mightn't
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  Speaker 3: get those subscriptions. He says he should I say the
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  Speaker 3: Kate Kate Ackland from Beef and Land, New Zealand says
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  Speaker 3: we would join a small group of countries outside the
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  Speaker 3: agreement if we got out of Paris, Libya, Yemen, ran
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  Speaker 3: Eritrea and South Sudan. She did neglect, however, to mention
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  Speaker 3: the elephant or the orange elephant in the room the US.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, a good point too, Jamie. Thank you for that,
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  Speaker 2: Jamie McKay, Host of the Country Here on News Talks Big.
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