Free workshops to bolster farmer financial skills
Free workshops are being offered around the country to help farmers take more ownership of their farm business finances.
A rosy outlook on sheepmeat needs to be slightly tempered by market realities, one meat company suggests.
A Rabobank report by animal proteins analyst Blake Holgate says prices to late-season October as high as mid $8/kg can be expected. And possibly even higher.
Alliance general manager livestock and shareholder services Heather Stacy says prices are firm in their key markets.
“But we need to be mindful of issues such as Brexit coinciding with our chilled lamb programme for the UK and the wider potential for volatility with foreign exchange levels,” she told Rural News.
“As a cooperative, it is important to us that sheepmeat price levels are sustainable for farmers over the long term.”
Beef + Lamb NZ’s chief economist Andrew Burtt says broadly they agree with Holgate. But BLNZ is a bit more conservative than his “at least as high as the mid $8 mark per kilo we saw last year” for the remainder of the season.
“Our view is that prices will be about $8.40/kg on average for all lambs during the fourth quarter of the meat export season, ie July-September,” Burtt told Rural News.
“We are in the process of preparing our New Season Outlook which considers the factors.”
Holgate says restricted global supplies and strong international demand are set to keep sheepmeat prices at elevated levels,
Holgate said in a recent podcast — New Zealand sheepmeat – Mid-year Outlook — that strong market fundamentals during the current season had given sheep farmers healthy returns in recent months. These fundamentals are set to persist for at least the rest of 2019.
The Commerce Commission says connectivity options for rural New Zealanders are front-of-mind as it begins a formal investigation into the future of the copper network.
Grand Finalists have been selected, all regional finals have concluded, and the journey towards the FMG Young Farmer of the Year Grand Final is underway.
Hopes of NZ sheepmeat prices picking up anytime soon in the country's key export market of China looks highly unlikely.
Regional councils are welcoming the certainty for councils in today’s Resource Management Act (RMA) announcement by the Government.
ASB says the decision to sign on to the AgriZeroNZ joint venture came out of a wish to be a part of the solution.
Federated Farmers says changes announced to the Resource Management Act today mark the end of the war on farming.
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