Hard to see where $150 will come from for a few years

Although the T150 call from Bruce Wills, Federated Farmers Meat and Fibre Chairman, is notable for its optimism more than its reality, you have to admire the sentiment behind the campaign. He knows it will be a hard target to achieve within the five year timeframe, but he says it’s necessary to instil confidence in the prospects for sheep farming among sheep farmers, otherwise more and more will get out, whether into dairy farming, dairy grazing or by selling out.

 

Bruce Wills sees improved returns coming from both supply chain efficiencies and increasing the percentage share of the retail value of a lamb. These comments, while taking a positive approach to a seemingly insoluble problem, won’t actually make any difference on their own without concerted action by everybody in the industry to process and market lamb a lot more effectively than has been the case in the past.

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Outlook for Silver Fern Farms deal looks bleak

The last minute hold up of the first instalment of PGG Wrightson’s (PGW) payment for 50% of Silver Fern Farms (SFF) was, in Craig Norgate’s words, ‘bloody disappointing’. More than that, it is a major obstacle to what had seemed to be a done deal, having overcome what everybody thought was an even bigger challenge – getting more than 75% of eligible SFF shareholders to vote in favour of giving up half their co-operative to an outside investor.