He says unless Europe is prepared to pay higher prices for lamb, New Zealand could ship a lot more to China. Petersen has just returned from an international sheep forum in Brussels where about a 100 producers from around the world discussed issues of sheep meat production and marketing.
There was much discussion of what’s happening globally in the market, much of it big news to the Europeans who operate almost exclusively in their own market.
“Our knowledge of global markets is one way we can provide leadership in the sheepmeat world – by talking about what’s happening in other markets around the world and how that’s going to influence particularly the European market,” Petersen told Rural News.
“At the forum a big talking point was China and the effect and influence it is having on supply demand and pricing, and that if Europe isn’t prepared to pay better prices for sheepmeat then, frankly, China will take everything New Zealand has. That was real eye opener for them.”
Petersen told the Europeans there was a risk they could lose out on having New Zealand lamb on supermarket shelves during the European ‘off-season’.
That would badly hit European farmers because no supermarket would be prepared to have lamb on their shelves for just six months of the year. Petersen hopes this message gets through to both European farmers and supermarkets.
“I think we will still send significant volumes to Europe this year but we won’t fill the quota; there is no doubt about that. Remembering the quota year runs from January to December, I am picking we’ll fill 75-80%, which is low in historical terms.”
This is just the second forum of its kind – the first was held in 2009 – and Petersen says that one was quite acrimonious. At the time there was a lot of tension because of the competition between New Zealand exports and domestic production in that market.
“This time we have had good discussions and conversations and it seems we are all much better informed about each other’s sector.
“Frankly that’s because of all the hard work we have put in over the last five years to get this space,” he says.
Petersen says neither China nor the USA were at the forum, but James Parsons (Beef+Lamb chair–elect) went to Russia on the way to the forum and also had talks with Polish farmers.
Peterson says there was a great deal of interest in the ‘extension’ work BLNZ is doing and they were asked to help at least one country on this issue.
– Peter Burke
