Latest / Early Edition with Ryan Bridge / Toby Williams: Federated Farmers Meat and Wool Chair on the decline in livestock numbers

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Toby Williams: Federated Farmers Meat and Wool Chair on the decline in livestock numbers · Early Edition with Ryan Bridge

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Two figures from Stats ins that our livestock numbers are
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  Speaker 1: falling twenty one percent drop in sheep over the past decade.
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: That's down to twenty three point six million. Dairy cattle
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  Speaker 1: numbers dropped thirteen percent, while beef cattle held steady. Toby
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  Speaker 1: Williams Meat and wheelchair at fed Farmers with me this morning, Toby,
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  Speaker 1: good morning, morning, right, how are you pretty good?
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  Speaker 2: Thank you?
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  Speaker 1: Now, the reason really what this is about is there's
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  Speaker 1: less grassland for the animals on to farm on.
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  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, it's all about land use change. And we've
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  Speaker 2: seen with forestry of sheep and beef and then dairy
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  Speaker 2: you've gone to horticulture and housing.
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  Speaker 1: I saw that kiwi fruit was up thirty two percent
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  Speaker 1: increase in land used for kiwi fruit. So we are
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  Speaker 1: switching in some ways that that's a good thing.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. And then people should be free to
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  Speaker 2: choose what land you best suits the land have got,
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  Speaker 2: whether it's horticulture, whether it's you know, dairy farming or
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  Speaker 2: sheven beef or forestry for that matter. Our big concerns
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  Speaker 2: really lie around the reduction of sheep has been driven
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  Speaker 2: not so much because forest is a better land use.
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  Speaker 2: In some cases it is, but as the carbon market
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  Speaker 2: that's really driving that forward, because you get much more
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  Speaker 2: returned from the carbon the eaty s tracket than you
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  Speaker 2: do from she's beef.
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  Speaker 1: Is there a number twenty three point six million sheep
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  Speaker 1: in New Zealand right now in a twenty one percent
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  Speaker 1: drop over the past decade. Is there a number below
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  Speaker 1: which the industry starts to sort of cave in on itself.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think we're almost already there. We've seen the
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  Speaker 2: challenges of the Alliance are having in terms of profitability
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  Speaker 2: and be able to keep plants open and clothes missile
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  Speaker 2: plant in Tomoru. So we're starting to see that really
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  Speaker 2: tipped now as we need some capacity there in our
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  Speaker 2: processes to be able to make sure that in droughts
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  Speaker 2: we're can actually process and at peak times we can
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  Speaker 2: process all the animals. How we still need our plans
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  Speaker 2: to be efficient and you know, running at a capacity
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  Speaker 2: and those big plants now because are really struggling to
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  Speaker 2: get the numbers of sheeps through and this winter is
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  Speaker 2: going to be a real tough one for all of
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  Speaker 2: our processes. We're looking at being close to a million
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  Speaker 2: lamps less to process this year. Than what we had
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  Speaker 2: last year.
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  Speaker 1: The hard thing is you can't. It's very difficult to
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  Speaker 1: unfart with forestry, isn't it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, it is. And you know the government's made sort
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  Speaker 2: of the right moves to try to put some limits
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  Speaker 2: on it if there's announcements, but there's still loopholes there
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  Speaker 2: that are enabling people to convert their better quality land
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  Speaker 2: into pine trees. But ultimately what we need to see, Ryan,
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  Speaker 2: is a change to the ETU settings the better balance
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  Speaker 2: our emissions as well as our productive of food, because
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  Speaker 2: we aren't seeing a demand for extra timber and thirty
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  Speaker 2: years time as much as the Green Party had the
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  Speaker 2: announced the Gavna they're going to build nice did you
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  Speaker 2: know what?
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  Speaker 1: Don't even talk about it, Toby, because it's just such
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  Speaker 1: fanciful nonsense. Appreciate your time, ho yes or no? Quick
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  Speaker 1: yesse or no from your Toby. And it's a hard one.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: Should we pull out of Paris?
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  Speaker 2: Well that's a really hard one recently. Yeah, I think
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  Speaker 2: you know we should be uh yeah, possibly all right, Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: appreciate more information.
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  Speaker 1: Ryan, Appreciate your time, Toby. Toby Williams meet and wilchair
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  Speaker 1: fed farmers with us this morning bright and early six
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  Speaker 1: after sorry, sixteen minutes after five Now News Talks here'b.
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  Speaker 1: I've always thought, you know, as a country we produce, yes,
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  Speaker 1: we have the higher methane emissions blah blah blah blah blah,
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  Speaker 1: but we feed something like forty million people. We're a
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  Speaker 1: country of five million that feeds forty million. Surely that's
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  Speaker 1: going to count for something.
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  Speaker 2: For more from Early Edition with Ryan Bridge. Listen live
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: to News Talks it'd be from five am weekdays, or
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.