Jamie Mackay: The Country host on what record US beef prices mean for New Zealand's farmers

As the summer barbecue season continues in the US, Americans are paying record-setting prices for their beef. 

The price for New Zealand-produced beef has surged amid ongoing demand among US consumers.

The Country's Jamie Mackay reveals what this news could mean for Kiwi farmers.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jamie McKay is with US host of the Country, Jamie
good Evening.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Good Ay, Ryan.

Speaker 3 (00:04):
Now, beef prices heading record highers in the US just
in time for the barbecue season over there.

Speaker 2 (00:10):
Well, yeah, Americans, I think burgers, hamburgers all year round,
that's what they want our beef for. But unbelievable prices
in the US at the moment, Ryan, bodeswell for American
consumers to continue to pay the base tariff rate of
ten percent. That is, of course, if the base tariff
rate stays at ten percent, that's another story for another day.

(00:33):
But my US correspondent, a guy from Lexington, Kentucky, was
on the show today. They had one thousand pounds stairs
were just over one thousand pounds in imperial measurements, and
they sold for over three thousand US per head. That's
over five thousand New Zealand dollars per cattle beast. Now
I did some maths on this one. Those thousand and

(00:55):
thirty eight pounds are quate to four hundred and seventy
two kilos, which equates to six dollars thirty eight are
kilogram US dollars. Convert that to New Zealand dollars at
a sixty cent exchange rate. You've got ten dollars sixty
three and that is running round in the paddock that's
on the hoof. Ryan. By the time you process that

(01:16):
animal and get the yield at sixty percent I sixty
percent meat, forty percent the rest is thrown away. That
equates to seventeen dollars seventy per kilogram in New Zealand money.
Currently New Zealand farmers are being paid eight to eight
dollars fifty a kilogram for beef, so they're paying enormous
prices for beef in the US at the moment.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
Yeah, it sounds like it too, Jamie Beef and Lamb
here and the Meat Industry Association pointing out some potential
loopholes on the government's plan for a ban on farmer
forestry conversions.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
What's happening with this, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Well, they're saying they need to tighten some of these
loopholes because there's too many people sneaking through. And I'm
with them on this one. I think we're almost shutting
the stable or after the horse has bolted. Because the
government made the announcement on the fourth of December last year.
Down on Southland, there's been heaps of conversions happening, some
going through the back door since then. So what they're

(02:11):
saying is they want the government to extend the proposed
mauratorium on whole farm conversions blanket planting of farms to
all land classes, not just classes one to five. Otherwise,
they're saying it's just going to have too big an
effect on the pastoral industry in this country. They're also saying,

(02:31):
and this is another one, New Zealand's the only country
in the world ryan aside from Kazakhstan, that places no
restrictions on the use of forestry offsets. We're allowed hundred
percent offsetting here for exalting plantings to go into the ets.
No other country but Kazakhstan does that. And they've thrown
some numbers out there just for good measure. They're saying

(02:53):
since twenty seventeen, and the forestry people will probably argue
against these, but they're saying since twenty seventeen, three hundred
thousand hectares of whole sheep and beef farms have been
sold to forestry interests. Some of it, to be fair,
is into production forestry. They're estimating a further fifty thousand
hectares is going to go before these new rules take

(03:14):
effect later this year. They're saying this could lead to
a million hectares lost by the year twenty fifty. They're
saying these land use changes could reduce livestock numbers by
two and a half million stock units and shrink the
sheep and beef sectors grassland base by up to twenty percent.
So they're not good numbers. Yes, the problem continues.

Speaker 1 (03:36):
Hey, what about fed farmers because we've spoken before about
Groundswell right behind pulling out of the Paris Agreement, but
fed farmers not lobbying the government to do that.

Speaker 2 (03:47):
No, well fed farmers has gone into bat with other
industry good bodies like dairy and zed and beef and
lamb on this one. President Wayne Langford is a fairly
solid sort of thinker, to my way of thinking, said
he sat in rooms with dairy company leaders who say
that it could shave as much as three dollars off
the dairy price a kilogram of milk solids, So why

(04:07):
would we even be talking about it. On contrast, that
Groundswell co leader Bryce Lawrence, I was going to say
he's a rugby referee. Hello, Bryce, If you're listening. Bryce
mackenzie isn't surprised. He said Federated Farmers normally take a
more conservative line than they do and they could be
working strategically with the government. He says, though, Federated Farmers

(04:29):
had better be careful because they're a subscription paying organization.
If they don't do what their members want, they mightn't
get those subscriptions. He says he should I say the
Kate Kate Ackland from beef and Land, New Zealand, says
we would join a small group of countries outside the
agreement if we got out of Paris, Libya, Yemen, Iran,

(04:51):
Eritrea and South Sudan. She did neglect, however, to mention
the elephant or the orange elephant in the room the US.

Speaker 1 (05:00):
Yeah, a good point too, Jamie. Thank you for that,
Jamie mccaye, host of the Country. Here on News Talks,
It'd beg for more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive. Listen
live to News Talks.

Speaker 2 (05:09):
It'd be from four pm weekdays, or follow the podcast
on iHeartRadio.