The Country 22/08/25: Richard Dawkins talks to Jamie Mackay

Federated Farmers’ meat and wool chairman says there’s reason for hope that the strong wool industry has turned a corner - but farmers need to get in behind the change-makers. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Heading down the road to Marlborough. Richard Dawkins Federated Farmers
Meat and Wheelchair took over from Toby Williams. Richard, are
you still got the Save our Sheep campaign going strong?
That was sort of Toby's baby.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
Yeah, thanks for having me, Jamie. Yees. Look, we do
and obviously very ralevant at the moment. We're seeking changes
to that Climate Change Amendment Bill, which would certainly help
the bill achieve what it was intended to do.

Speaker 1 (00:25):
Yeah, carbon farming is still very much an issue for
you guys.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Yeah, very much though, and look, we really appreciate the
intent of the bill from the government. You know, it
was put under urgency. They obviously understand the issue, but
we're just concerned it misses the markerwe bit.

Speaker 1 (00:40):
You're wandering at the moment. I think Class is one
to five. You can put twenty no more than twenty
five percent of your plantings into the ets no protection
or six Classes six and seven where most of the
extensive sheep and beef properties that have little or no protection. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (00:58):
So there's a fifteen thousand hectier lottery for Class six.
So I'm really curious about how that would work in reality.
But then as you say, no protection on class seven
and eighty eight percent of those carbon conversions were actually
on classes six and seven. So yeah, still a real concern.

Speaker 1 (01:18):
You write an interesting Colement's on the Herald on the
Country website about Wall. You haven't given up hope. A
lot of farmers have to be fair Richard. And you
wrote in the early nineteen eighties wall contributed sixty five
percent of our farm's sheep income. This is your farm
in Marlborough. Will was king and sheep were a true

(01:39):
dual purpose breed today and this is a damning fig
A strong Wall makes up just one to two percent
of gross farm income. That's a big fall from grace.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
Yeah, that's right, And yeah, I mean the great benefit
of sheeps. They are a dual purpose animal, right and
when we're seeing beef returns as they are. Although I
received a LAMB schedule which was pretty promising this morning,
but yeah, I mean, if you're a single purpose animal,
bfe's are probably going to wash sheep out. So yeah,
there's some great initiatives going on between industry and government.

(02:12):
So we're just hosting these workshops, four of them down
Otago and Southland and just trying to get a bit
of positivity going Jamie.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, well, positive is one thing, being realistic to another.
If I had a dollar for every time someone had
an idea to save strong wool, I would be a
wealthy man.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
Yeah. Absolutely, And look, I can't speak on behalf of
these ladies and gentlemen who are doing this work, but look,
they have been investing time and money into these initiatives,
so let's go along and at least give it a chance. Right.

Speaker 1 (02:45):
Well, we had the example this week of the tennis balls,
which is a good story. At the US Open. They've
been using New Zealand strong cross bread wool for ages.
But I've always been of a mind, Richard, that we
need to find some other really main basic purpose for
strong cross bread wall other than carpets.

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Yeah, that's right. It's that valuable end use, but also
having a supply chain that focuses on returning that value
to the farmer and having it sustainable for the farmer
as well as the end user.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
Do you think we should go back to like a wall, Levy?

Speaker 2 (03:19):
Oh yes, Look, I mean I'm hearing murmurings of potentially
something like that could be in the works. And look,
I represent my Meat and Wall Council twenty four, twenty
four people who then represent our twelve thousand members, and
we actually haven't had that discussion. But look at the moment,
industry groups and government are investing a lot of money

(03:41):
into this stuff, and at some point I assume that
tap will be turned off.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
How's things in Marlboro, because I know you got very
wet there for a while, not quite as wet as
they did over on the other side of the hills
in the Tasman Nelson region, but you had a truckload
of rain. It's probably going to set you guys up
pretty well spring.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, look, we certainly feel for our friends over the hill,
but like you say, Jamie, it was very wet just
in the lead up to lambing, But since then we've
had beautiful, cold, frosty mornings and nice funny days. So
we've only actually lost one lamb due to adverse weather
this season, which is certainly a record for us.

Speaker 1 (04:19):
Good stuff, Happy days for the sheep farmers in Marlborough.
Richard Dawkins, thanks for your time. Con Federated Farmers.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
No problems. Thanks Jane