{"id":27682,"date":"2015-06-01T01:41:16","date_gmt":"2015-05-31T23:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/?p=27682"},"modified":"2015-06-01T01:42:03","modified_gmt":"2015-05-31T23:42:03","slug":"27682","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/27682\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand: Sheep Wander Off; Cows Trot in"},"content":{"rendered":"

Flavia Krause-Jackson and Tracy Withers write: Once upon a time there were 20 sheep to every Kiwi. Now it’s more like seven to every New Zealander. Blame cows, which are now bringing home\u00a0the bacon.<\/p>\n

Huge tracts of flatland once used for sheep farming were converted to dairy pastures as the global price\u00a0for butter and cheese increased, while demand for sheep meat and wool waned, said Susan Kilsby, a dairy analyst at AgriHQ in Wellington.<\/p>\n

“Returns for dairy have been substantially better than for a traditional sheep and beef farming operation,” she said.
\nThe chart below shows how milk-producing cows\u00a0now contribute far more to New Zealand’s economy\u00a0than sheep, cows for beef and grains combined.<\/p>\n

\"Sheep<\/a>There were other factors at play, too. The removal of subsidies for sheep farming in the mid-1980s\u00a0exposed\u00a0ranchers\u00a0to market forces, explained Adrienne Egger, an agriculture analyst at\u00a0Beef and Lamb New Zealand, an organization representing farmers.\u00a0New\u00a0irrigation projects also\u00a0made\u00a0dairy farming possible for the first time in many parts of the country, AgriHQ’s Kilsby said\u00a0(cows raised\u00a0to produce milk are real water guzzlers).<\/p>\n

There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand and they’re PISSED OFF!” Fact is, there are far fewer sheep than that.<\/p>\n

Lamb prices\u00a0at the farm-gate\u00a0rose 85 percent in real terms and mutton prices more than doubled from 25 year ago. China, once a market for low-value cuts, has\u00a0rapidly emerged as a major importer of Made in New Zealand \u2014\u00a0<\/em>moving up from eighth place to second between 2008 and 2013.<\/p>\n

“In 2014, China was the largest single country market by volume of lamb,” Eggers said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Flavia Krause-Jackson and Tracy Withers write: Once upon a time there were 20 sheep to every Kiwi. Now it’s more like seven to every New Zealander. Blame cows, which are now bringing home\u00a0the bacon. Huge tracts of flatland once used … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27682","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-finance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t