The Country 16/03/26: Tom Young talks to Jamie Mackay

Affco’s National Livestock Manager discusses the impending issues facing the red meat industry as the Middle East war wages on. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's the National Livestock manager for AFCO. Great to catch
up with them for lunch on Friday at the Wanaka Show.
But Tom Young with Miles Hurrell resigning hot news story
of the day. Maybe you might be throwing your hat
into the ring for the top job there cut off
your mate Mark Delatour at the past.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Yeah, I think, well, thanks for thinking considering me to
do that, Jamie, But I suspect it's probably slowly above
my pay grade. But maybe Mark would be a better
option hitting in that direction.

Speaker 1 (00:31):
Well, I can think of about six point three million
reasons why you might throw your hat into the ringtime.
But in the meantime, in the meantime, let's talk about
red meat, your area of expertise. What is this Middle
East war doing to affect prices that farmers are going
to get in their back pocket? And I asked this
because the schedules have softened slightly but not much.

Speaker 2 (00:55):
No so over the last three or four weeks, probably
schedules have only really come off to you're thirty cents
off their highs. So, as everyone knows, there's a huge
amount of uncertainty and it's sort of playing out now.
I think we'll probably see in the next two to
three weeks, we'll see that, you know, where the rubber
meets the road energy costs. Obviously going through the roof

(01:17):
market access into that Middle East is well restricted or
pretty much non existent. And so with all those sorts
of pressures, if you're shipping product around the world and
you don't have the Middle East as an option, it's
you're looking at congestion and congestion charges into other port
You're looking at some serious issues that could slow certainly

(01:40):
slow things down. So yeah, I think it's sort of
got watching brief. We've got a number of markets that
are probably okay to strengthening in some cases China, the US,
they are still taking along nicely, a little bit of
negativity and downward pressure in Europe, so we're sort of

(02:01):
we've got a bit of a watching brief. But I
think if I was a farmer and I had killable stock,
I'd certainly be sending it in and getting on with
it and sort of making the most of the pricing
where it is now.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
Yeah, because obviously the price of oil fuel transport is
going to very quickly be factored into a getting your
stock to the processing plants and be sending that stuff overseas.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Yeah, one hundrederscent. And I think we're sort of two
to three weeks out from really seeing the impacts of
all this stuff so well, only speaking from Ath Coast perspective,
but we softened our lambs schedule last week and both
islands coming into this week, and we held on to
sort of the beef levels. So yeah, I mean, farmers
are still getting record money, but you know, I don't

(02:48):
know what's going to happen in two to three weeks time. Well,
no one really does, but it's it would certainly point
to be a very cautious sort of market.

Speaker 1 (02:56):
Are you still got a heap or have you still
got a heap of farmers hanging on because of the
grass market.

Speaker 2 (03:03):
Yeah, we think there's still a lot of stock out there,
and that texts you another issue. So if the stock
all sort of hit us at once in market, access
was a little bit restricted, and you know, it's hard
to get containers to the other side of the world
for various reasons. There's only a limited amount of storage
space in New Zealand, so you know, we've got to

(03:24):
be a little bit mindful of that as well.

Speaker 1 (03:26):
How did you enjoy the Wonaka show. It's very much
a networking opportunity for you guys. As I finally say,
even at field days. You do the best lunch at
these field days. That's why I that's why you're my
mate when it comes to about two o'clock when I
get off air Tom. But other than the networking, is
it good value for companies such as AFCO.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
To be there. Yeah, yeah, I think it is. I
mean it's a great day to catch up with farmers
and clients and it's a good it's a good fund
of indo I guess. And people can sit on the tent,
a COEs tent and have have a meal, a pretty
good meal, and a b or class for orange juice
if they want to, and just take the weight off
your feet and catch up with their local rep and

(04:06):
sort of enjoy the day. So yeah, we think it's
a good thing. We're going to continue to do it. It's
you know, from I guess, from a social responsibility perspective,
it's good to support these events. We tip a lot
of money into them. You know what the returns are
I don't know, but we've got to be you know,
we've got to keep supporting things where we can.

Speaker 1 (04:28):
You can't afford not to be there. Hey Tom Young,
it was great to catch up with you last Friday
and Wanica. I haven't been to that show for years,
and I drove past it on Saturday morning on my
way to Queenstown and there was even more people there.
I think on the Saturday. It is a great show.

Speaker 2 (04:43):
Fantastic day. It will two days

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Actually, thanks mate, See you later up wonderful see you