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The Weekly Livestock Report: Storms are still brewing in the dairy market and meat restructuring appears to have stalled.

Rural News
The Weekly Livestock Report: Storms are still brewing in the dairy market and meat restructuring appears to have stalled.

LAMB

Milder weather, good feed covers and some restocking especially in the north has seen prices lift for all sheep offered at saleyards.  Most prime lambs are achieving prices well in excess of $100, low numbers of stores and ewes are attracting strong demand, and animals with breeding potential are achieving premiums above their meat values. Processors have lifted their schedules to meet the demand but lessons learnt from a year ago may temper the market getting overheated and consumers switching to cheaper proteins again.

Marketers report optimism for strong pricing up until Christmas as the reduced sheep numbers and lower scanning results should drive a short supply driven demand and in the UK consumers are returning to purchase lamb at higher rates than last year.

Members of the Meat Industry Excellence group have met their counterparts in Britain with an aim to work together to provide a planned year round supply for that countries consumers at a price that is beneficial to both regions. Disappointingly, reports suggest there is very little likelihood of any significant red meat industry restructure will happen this year, as this sector once again refuses to make those hard calls to ensure the long term profitability of the sector.

DAIRY

Mild conditions for this time of year are welcomed by farmers which has even seen some operators in the Waikato concerned about unusually high grass covers. With some yearling heifers below liveweight targets and only 8-10 weeks from mating, advisers are urging operators to use this feed wisely and plan the animal health and bull management well to ensure an efficient outcome.

Calving is now also under way in the south where favourable weather is helping at this busy time of year and NIWA forecast these conditions to continue.

The storms are still is in progress in the market, as negative publicity from the food scare combined with fines for pricing practices by Fonterra in China, and the inevitable inquiries over the debacle have put a cloud over all in the dairy sector. Investors have quickly recovered their composure however, as the Fonterra Shareholders fund regained it’s value, and only a small price drop on the biggest volume sold at a single global trade auction event, was testament to a market still hungry for dairy commodities.

The MyFarm organized small investment opportunity, to purchase a share in dairy farms  had a successful start as innovative ideas keep pushing dairy growth ahead. Both fertiliser Co-Op's have announced their financial results with one producing a record result, while the other unable to return a rebate, in a year where reduced fertiliser usage was the norm.

WOOL

The last Christchurch wool auction saw crossbred wools continue to prosper but mid micron fibers languish at values not seen for nearly two years. Volumes have recovered with the weather, and the market will be tested next with a double sale of high yielding prelamb shorn wools.

Wools of NZ announced producer support exceeds shareholders  as they report 300 more farmers supply wool to this new company and look to provide contracts soon for the new season.

BEEF

Low volumes of manufacturing product into the US have kept the market stable, and reduced numbers of prime cattle have kept demand strong as processors strive to meet their chilled beef commitments. Local trade schedules reach the yearly high as domestic demand hits drought shortages of suitable cattle.

240 meat workers were laid off in North Otago as a labeling error in product sent to China has seen certification withdrawn and puts more pressure on officials to get it right in this important new market. “Spring fever” has started early in the store cattle market as farmers look to make earlier than normal purchases to utilize unexpected feed levels and restock after last season.

DEER

Producers are now seeing spring schedule rises in bigger jumps as interest lifts for chilled product and farmers are hoping the milder weather will activate the animals spring growth rate switch earlier. The currency is significantly lower than last year at this stage and should make this product more competitive in Europes price sensitive market and farmers will be looking for the schedule to reflect this.

Velvet growth responds quickly to warmer weather and increased quality feed, and animals could respond with earlier harvestable heads and more regrowth as a result. With little carryover stock reported farmers will be looking for another  season where predictable volumes fetch quietly rising price levels.

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5 Comments

if the raw milk is good, the rest is easy - their words.

 

The recent Fonterra incident is a lesson in that no company in the world can take product safety for granted. It's also sparked the question -- just how far are Chinese dairy companies from their international rivals in quality?

Lunchtime, at Ground Dairy. Australian cows. Swedish equipment. Imported feed. Only the workers are Chinese.

http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/business/2013-08/13/content_16889978.htm

here is the rubb:

Quality is almost an obsession in China's post-melamine dairy industry, from strict quarantine to rigorous testing. But unlike the Fonterra contamination, which happened during processing, in China, the problem often lies at the source -- the raw milk. As industry veteran Qin Heping says, if the raw milk is good, the rest is easy.

 

Innovation are you sure. Sustainable we think wonder...

An investment manager, unable to sell their previously packaged asset on the open market, then re packages the farm and "sells" it in house to ever smaller scale investors....

 

innovative - being or producing something like nothing done or experienced or created before;

a conflict of interest a situation in which someone cannot make a fair decision because they will be affected by the result

- nothing new about conflicts of interest, actually old as the hills....

 

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Promoted by MyFarm, which itself has $500 million tied up in 47 dairy farms, PRD Investments is offered the ''collective investment vehicle'' to pool smaller public investments to make a larger investment. Each property is a separate, stand-alone, investment.

Poplar Rd farm will be purchased from a MyFarm syndicate, which would initially get a $455,000 establishment fee and then charge a 0.5% annual management fee.

The offer has a registered prospectus and plans to list to attract small investors.

MyFarm also has other syndicates operating, but they have a minimum threshold of $250,000, with the average subscription being about $500,000.

''It was slow getting started and we had to get the prospectus through the FMA (Financial Markets Authority). The Fonterra [contamination] scare was not helpful, but we got beyond the minimum,'' Mr Watters said.

http://www.odt.co.nz/news/business/268334/dairy-farm-shares-all-go-2-mi…

 

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if the raw milk is good, the rest is easy

and so.....

Gary Romano, Managing Director NZ Milk Products, resigning with immediate effect.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=109…

Mr Spierings will assume interim responsibility for the day-to-day operations of NZ Milk Products.

 

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Hands off Theo.... he is the Winston Wolfe character (Harvey Keitel). "The Wolf" takes charge of the situation.... and IOHO the only one showing any leadership...   As per William Scuby: Demanding for Spierings to go would be unfair (just to be fair). The lead-up to this problem likely started while Andrew Ferrier was still at the helm. Under his tenure, especially in the latter part, all focus was on expansion and reducing costs to pay for it.

Safety, including food safety, didn't appear to be a strong focus. There was a huge push to get ACC accreditation, not to improve safety, but just enough (mainly on paper) to pass the audits and safe millions in premiums. Safety performance/compliance statistics were presented in a way that did not reflect reality or the records collected in the system.

Spierings has no direct responsibilities for this kind of activities. He is accountable for the information provided by site management and the current inquiries/investigations should look at whether Spierings can trust the information dished up by site management.


If it shows that information about financial and safety performance was misrepresented/misreported, the chopping block should come out. http://www.nzherald.co.nz/opinion/news/article.cfm?c_id=466&objectid=10… thus far no one else you have in the fox hole....  
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and then so...

A veterinarian and farm consultant doubts the recent Fonterra botulism scare was caused by a dirty pipe, and says he is sitting on material that will embarrass the dairy giant further.

Matamata veterinarian and farm performance consultant Frank Rowson says Fonterra should be tracing the source of the Clostridium botulinum bacterium back to farms or their own water supply.

He doubts Clostridium botulinum was caused by an old pipe at Fonterra's Hautapu plant and said it had to get in there in the first place.

 

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/dairy/9041155/Vet-links-botulis…

He thought maize silage on-farm, or grains/soy in mixed rations were the most likely source of the bacterium and another was when there were pockets of contamination in wrapped silage and not enough heat to destroy the neuro toxins.

"Then it enters the food chain," he said.

"The dirty pipe would be contaminated by product from cows or water supply and the organism would multiply in the dirt in the pipe. Therefore they should be tracing back to farms or their own water supply.

 

folk have been asking for the science since and mechanics of process from the get go...

 

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