Jamie Mackay: The Country host on demand for red meat shifting ahead of supply

Despite the current geopolitical environment, product prices have strongly recovered from their lows of the past couple of seasons as demand returned from key export markets.

Experts claim tighter global production has contributed to improved demand for meat products.

The Country's Jamie Mackay explains further.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The rural rewort with MSD Animal Health, home of Maltine
End's head's leading fave in one vaccine quarter past six.
On news talks, he'd be Jamie McKay with me tonight
hosted the Country. Hi Jamie, good evening, Ryan. Great to
have you here as always. Now, Jim Ward, the manager
of Molesworth Station, the biggest farm in the country, has
resigned from his post. This after twenty four years of

(00:23):
service to the operation. What's going on here, Well.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
I don't know. I've got a call into him. I'm
very disappointed about this from a purely selfish point of view, Ryan,
Jim and I went to secondary school together, played a
lot of footy together, and I caught up with him,
renewed our acquaintance at the Primary Industry Awards just last
month and he said, I'll take you for a tour
through Molesworth Station this summer. And that's not going to

(00:49):
happen because he's left or resigned with immediate effect. He's
alleged to have resigned because of growing frustration with the
wilding pines on the station and the uncertainty of the
station's future. The wilding pines are estimated to will cover
sixty percent of the station in the next twenty years

(01:10):
unless something's done to halt their progress or lack of
progress in their case. So you know, as you pointed out, Ryan,
it is the country's biggest farm. One hundred and eighty
thousand hectares. What's that just off the top of my head,
about four hundred and fifty thousand acres or something like that.
One of one hundred and twelve farms that PAMU own
or manage. This one's owned by the Crown, lest by PAMU,

(01:32):
managed by Doc. There is a lot of criticism that
they're not doing a very good job. It is a
magnificent property. It's a real jewel. Also in the tourism.
Crown running six thousand Angus and Angus hereford cross cattle.
And I think we're going to talk about the price
of meat very shortly. Literally, those Angus cattle are black gold.

Speaker 1 (01:51):
Yeah. Well, Dan Bolton certainly thinks so. Silver Fan's farm
chief executive talking about demand and the fact that it's
getting out ahead of supply and we'll stay that.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Isn't it. And it's a bit like the dairy prices
at the moment. It's little consolation to people heading to
the supermarket. But the dairy prices and the meat prices
are really good, at record highs in many cases. So
not good if you're a shopper and you've got four
point six percent less for your dollar than you've got
this time a year ago. But meat, fish and poultry

(02:24):
drove up those food prices by six point four percent.
Your steak's gone up by twenty two percent, your mints
by fifteen percent. God knows what your butter and cheese
have done. But Silverfern Farms yet Dan Bolton, they recently
had their farmer conference, I think it was in Hamilton,
and he's just saying, look, demand is exceeding supply, and

(02:46):
that's right across the world. That the US is still
in a drought situation. It's going to take them several
years to rebuild their herd. Very favorable for the farmers,
those farmers that are left with land use change. Just
to give you an idea, the numbers ryan in May alone,
red meat ex boats were worth one point one five billion,

(03:07):
up six percent. The US our biggest market. Despite the
ten percent tariff, they're chewing through three hundred and twenty
seven million dollars worth of meat, nearly all grinding beef
in one month. Britain's up forty four percent to ninety
million off the back of the free trade agreement. The
problem is we're running out of land to raise these
cattle and lambs land use change, carbon farming. The lamb

(03:30):
kills ten percent behind where it was this time a
year ago. Beef kills down six percent to just over
two million. Those prices though, have gone up. It's eye
watering for lamb. Now you're getting nine dollars sixty this
time a year ago six dollars fifty. That's what the
farmers are getting paid. Prime beef is about eight to

(03:50):
eight dollars fifty. So when you go and look at
your piece of steak in the supermarket and you know
the farmers getting eight bucks a kilo, it's not all
their fault. Ask us the super markets why you're paying
forty five bucks a kilo.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
Yeah, and that's the problem. People are just looking at
the stacks. Some can't afford to actually go and buy them. Hey, Jamie,
great to have you on the program. As always, Jamie McKay,
host of the Country with our Rural Report.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
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