US removes reciprocal tariff on NZ beef
Red meat farmers and processors are welcoming a US Government announcement - removing its reciprocal tariffs on a range of food products, including New Zealand beef.
New Beef + Lamb NZ chair Kate Acland says it needs to keep fighting for sensible and practical policy settings.
She is B+LNZ’s first female chair and was voted in by the board shortly after its annual meeting in New Plymouth yesterday.
She replaces Andrew Morrison, who was voted out of the board by farmers this month.
Acland says discussions at yesterday’s AGM “underlined the need for deeper conversations with our farmers about some of the key issues we’re advocating on and why the board has taken the positions it has.”
Acland and her husband David own a range of businesses including Mt Somers Station, mid-Canterbury.
The couple have three children and employ 30 staff and run 30,000 stock units in a mixture of sheep, beef and deer, as well as an 850-cow dairy unit.
The Mt Somers Station property also includes a standalone honey operation with 500 hectares of native vegetation and beech forest supporting 400 hives that produce Manuka, Honeydew and Clover honeys.
Before moving to her husban family farm, she developed her own vineyard and winery (Sugar Loaf Wines), processing and export business in Marlborough.
Acland said she’s humbled to be appointed chair.
“This is an exciting opportunity to represent farmers and the sector I’m enormously passionate about,” she says.
“I’m personally optimistic about the future. New Zealand has a great history of innovating and adaptation, but right now farming is tough, and farmers are facing unprecedented challenges and change. I look forward to leading the organisation that helps farmers through that change.”
According to the latest Federated Farmers banking survey, farmers are more satisfied with their bank and less under pressure, however, the sector is well short of confidence levels seen last decade.
Farmer confidence has taken a slight dip according to the final Rabobank rural confidence survey for the year.
Former Agriculture Minister and Otaki farmer Nathan Guy has been appointed New Zealand’s Special Agricultural Trade Envoy (SATE).
Alliance Group has commissioned a new heat pump system at its Mataura processing plant in Southland.
Fonterra has slashed another 50c off its milk price forecast as global milk flows shows no sign of easing.
Meat processors are hopeful that the additional 15% tariff on lamb exports to the US will also come off.