The Country 09/09/25: Stu Duncan and Stu Loe talk to Jamie Mackay

We ask today’s sheep and beef farmer panel what they’re going to spend their vastly improved profits on?

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We've got him right now. He's a part of our
farmer panel. Stew Duncan and Stu Rowena is up your
way shooting there. She said it was snowing. How's the
season treating you?

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Yeah, well I saw a piccher of one of the deers.
She sortly just hoped didn't have one of my Nate
taggs in it.

Speaker 1 (00:18):
It'll taste it'll taste good. Stew.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Yeah, so it's been pretty cold actually where I've just
been to Crommelin back today and I got down to
six degrees and Howling norwester through Chatta Creek and in
those places it it was only about eight of.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
Nine degrees now, so there's not a lot of growth.

Speaker 2 (00:36):
But we don't use to get much about the twenty September,
so we're there are a couple of weeks away from lambing.
Some guys are just starting to land, but there's definitely
no surplus feed and it's cold.

Speaker 1 (00:45):
Well, you've just about to start lambing, of course. We
head to North Canterbury. We find Stu Low, the other
member of the Stew panel. Stu, you'll be just about
tailing docking, as the North Islanders say, are.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
You ducking yeah tailing, Yeah, you know it shall be.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
Sh'll be doing it later this week for where the
whether holds up. And yeah strong north west here today,
that's not much fun for bending up new hems and news.
So more lamb brakes and yeah teams to get a
bit frayed.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
What are you going to do with all your money
this season, Stue. We've heard from Kate Eckland beef and
lamb in z chair season average lamb price one hundred
and eighty dollars and this one amazed me. Season average
beef price and I took a double take on this
one two thousand dollars.

Speaker 4 (01:31):
Yeah, only wegear replaced, I think, and get repaid just
just I think that's a conservative way of doing it.
But you know it'll be. It'll be good to have
a good year. I mean the store stock price at
the moment, it's all very well selling bet stuff, but
you're going to go and replace it. And yeah, the

(01:53):
store market through strong too, which which is which is
good because as long as imagins are there, we all
even to buy to the cherry, well, you.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Don't necessarily have to replace it. You can breed them
at home, stew.

Speaker 4 (02:06):
If you don't want to go down they having cows
or anything like the cows which I know there's somebody
care caps because some are dry. You need lots of
water and sometimes the summer year we don't head lot
of water.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
So yeah, so Stu, I mean we're abysmal profitability stew
Duncan on sheep and beef farms in the twenty three
to twenty four season forty percent of them, I think
off the top of my head. Kate said, we're running
at a loss, so this is a whole lot better.
But I did point out to her, you know, like
one hundred and thirty nine thousand profits this year expected

(02:39):
to go to one hundred and sixty six and a
half in the coming season, which is fantastic. But you know,
I don't know if you've got five million dollars, maybe
not five million dollars, two or three million dollars tied
up in your sheep and beef farm, you know it's
still and I guess not not a brilliant return on
investment or are you happy with that.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
It's got a long way to go yet to catch
up with.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
Types of farming. But I guess one thing we're going
to look at is a future generation want to get
involved in an agriculture and that's always a bad thing.
It's all very well us old guy has been hanging around,
but if we want to courage others, it's got to
be a signal that it is worth while doing.

Speaker 3 (03:20):
But there's a lot of balance sheet. You know, it's
been a tough probably five or six years.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
We've had a couple of government changes and then our
farm under labor was pretty tight with regulatory walls. So
there's a lot of money that's been wasted on stuff
that didn't need to be that wasn't added value to the.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Bottom end of farming.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
So there's a lot of balance sheet's got to come
right yet, and then there's going to be the natural
flow on of that of a positive years of tax year.
So I think I'm just noticing around lately there's a
lot of people just trying to keep bit of that
money in their own bank account for a week bit.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Longer before they did it all back up. So that's
positive and you know it's got to stay that way.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
Or I've just been in a look at a new
museum in Cromwell today and we joked about sheep and
unless you're starting to get one hundred and eighty two.

Speaker 3 (04:00):
As for lambs, they'll be sheeting museums alow of New Zealand.
So you know, we ran a bit of pressure to
make sure that there's values stay there.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
It's too low. Final word from you, Perhaps you've been
very disciplined today as per instruction. You haven't mentioned the
rand Philly shield once.

Speaker 4 (04:16):
Now there's the stag didn't really roar on the weekend
of that. I see. I think of Center Texas about
getting they might have got velveted. So yeah, the velvet
might be worth a bit so. But no, that's good
to see the shield again. Back in the back in cri.

Speaker 1 (04:31):
Yawn yawn yrn. You guys, it's just ho hum for
you having the shield. It doesn't mean that much. You've
spent most of your life with it.

Speaker 4 (04:40):
No, there's a group of players that hadn't hadn't challenged
for it, and you can go you go back in
time and when you when you get a challenge, you've
got to make the most of it because the next
team is not far away. And I suppose even on
north of the required River was pretty pleased if it
changed hands, because then get a Cracker at this weekend
and even though they lost Auckland, it's a one off

(05:03):
game and anything's possible, but hopefully our boys can hold
onto it.

Speaker 1 (05:07):
Okay, there we got low Stu Duncan the Farmer panel
for today