Farmer Focus: Work together to compete with NZ farmers
Joe Mault © Richard Stanton The nights are drawing in and the weather is turning wetter – winter is certainly on its way, if not already here.
The conditions of the fields and weather will soon determine if we can keep the cattle outside any longer.
I can see us conceding soon and start housing cattle, but we will stagger this process so our Welsh Black cattle will stay out longer than the softer continentals.
About the author
I’m a big fan of our Welsh Blacks, as I think they can save us money on housing costs compared with the other continental types.
The sheep have been sorted into groups, ready for the tup. Talk will soon turn to which rams will go with which ewes.
This is a big consideration because the decisions we make now will affect the type of lamb crop we will have to sell next year.
Recent announcements about trade deals make you wonder what type of market we will be selling into.
See also:Â New Zealand delight at trade deal contrasts with UK farmer dismay
In particular, New Zealand’s ability to export lamb to us causes me great concern.
The New Zealand brand is strong. The country’s farmers produce lamb very efficiently from pasture, working with processors to create a uniform product, and even though they transport it thousands of miles, they can still undercut my own Welsh lamb.
So, rather than throwing stones about welfare and so on, we need to find out how they do it.
Their levy bodies give them everything from economic reports to interactive tools to look at their farming businesses.
In comparison, I look at the various options to me here in Wales and I struggle to see the same one-stop shop for comparable information.
Of course, here in Wales we have the Farming Connect service, which tries to plug this knowledge gap, but are they promoting the right incentives?
Are our levy bodies telling us what our processors want? Or are they all too closely aligned to the Welsh government?
The bigger issue, I fear, is our ability to listen to these national organisations – New Zealand farmers are all pulling in the same direction, but here we are still arguing among ourselves about what direction we need to go.
Until this is sorted out, I don’t think we will ever be able to compete with our southern hemisphere cousins.