Jamie Mackay: The Country host on red meat prices rebounding

New Zealand’s red meat sector is on track for a strong rebound, with export returns and overall profitability expected to rise.

According to Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s mid-season update, strong global demand is expected to boost results for the sector. 

The Country's Jamie Mackay explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jamie McKay is with us host of the country, Jamie.
Good evening, so forgive me Jamie you're there. Good evening
to you.

Speaker 2 (00:08):
Yeah you got me now, got you now.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
And the red meat sector doing very very well, back
on track for a strong rebound.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, yeah, a couple of good news stories out in
the last couple of days. We'll start with the red
meat then look at the dairy one. So yeah. Look.
Beef and Lamb New Zealand released their mid season update today.
They did it on the mid Canterbury or Mount Summers
farm of the chair of Beef and Lamb New Zealand,
Kate Ackland, well known Canterbury farming family, and they're saying

(00:39):
that export receipts a force forecast should I say, to
increase by one point two billion on last year to
reach ten point two billion. So obviously that's up from
nine billion the year before. And this is despite overall
export volumes dropping, so we're sending away less and getting

(00:59):
more for it. Lamb prices are forecast to reach one
hundred and fifty five dollars per head. That's up twenty
percent from last season, nine percent above the five year average.
Mutton which crashed badly in the past couple of years,
expected to rise to ninety dollars per head. This is
the old news, of course, seventy percent increase on last year.

(01:20):
Cattle prices, as we all know, at the moment, at
record levels, and all the all beef rounded out price
of six hundred and eighteen cents per kilogram is also
a record high. But there's a big rider on that one,
obviously with Trump AND's tariff. Now here's the interesting one.
Your average sheep and beef farmer Ryan will make a
profit of one hundred and six thousand, five hundred dollars

(01:44):
per year. And I'm guessing a lot of people are
listening in and thinking that's really good money. Well, it's
double last year's profit of fifty six thousand, But just
remember from that money that one hundred and six thousand,
they've got to pay drawings, tax, capital expenditure, replacing the
tractor or the ut and principal repayments, so it doesn't

(02:04):
actually leave that much and it's still less than the
five year average. Just another one fact that came out today.
Every day she can be farmers spend fifteen million dollars
in goods and services with eighty to ninety percent of
that money staying in local communities.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
No great context at you to put around that for
people to understand, Jamie. Now, the dairy modest growth betweenty
twenty five predicted this is a rabobank report, is it?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Yeah? This one came out well, it came out today,
but we were on to it yesterday. As a result,
Rabobanks listed its milk price forecast upwards by thirty cents
ten dollars per kilogram of milk solids. That's where Fonterra
and a number of other banks are sitting. In fact,
I think asb don't quite this one. There were global

(02:51):
dairy portally some export regions around the world Australia, US obviously, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil,
the EU and and the US are expected to expand
production by only zero point eight percent, so not much
of an increase on world milk production there. Interestingly, twenty
twenty four dairy exports reached a three year high, with

(03:14):
sales to China following a similar trend. Now, China has
been off the boil in recent years since COVID, so
it's good to see a bit of recovery there. Milk
prices up two dollars on where it was a year ago.
That's fantastic. Interest rates dropping, that's fantastic. The only writer
I would add to that one and it's the weather.

(03:34):
You can't do much about that. A lot of the
North Island in particular is very very dry, so there
is a risk that milk production could finish abruptly in
the western, Middle and north of the North Island.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Jamie, thank you for that update. Jamie mckaye, host of
the Country Here on News Talk CB, with a couple
of bits of good news from the rural sector. For
more from Heather Duplessy Allen Drive, listen live to News
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