Dan Boulton: Silver Ferns Farms chief executive says he's still unsure if meat sector will be affected by Trump tariffs

Cautious optimism from the meat sector as it braces for the impact of a US presidency change.

Donald Trump's campaigned on tariffs of up to 20 percent on all imports, with higher tariffs for imports from China.

Silver Fern Farms chief executive Dan Boulton says they're still unsure if New Zealand will actually be affected.

He told Ryan Bridge the tariffs will focus on nations which have a trade imbalance with the US.

“And I think for us, the US is very, very short on beef at the moment, and they’re going to be relying heavily on us over the next few years.”

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
We're going to Dan Bolton, our silverfer and Farms chief

(00:02):
executive for our rural catch up. So we've had the
dairy headline numbers doing quite well, but what about the
red meat sector? What about the Trump's and Trump's tariffs
and also our disputes with Canada. It's great to have
Dan back on the program. Dan, good morning, Good morning, Ryan,
great to talk to you. Let's start with the whole

(00:24):
Trump tariff thing. How didn't you guys worried about that?

Speaker 2 (00:29):
I mean, clearly there's some big pre election promises there
around blanket tariffs and they created some big headlines here
in New Zealand and sort of made us sit up
as a large export nation in the US market is
a really important market for our sheep, beef and venison farmers,
and that market's going extremely well for us. But when
our views, there's still a lot of water to go

(00:49):
under the bridge between now and the twentieth of January
and whether New Zealand will actually be affected and whether
those tariffs are going to be more targeted versus blanket
and we're sort of seeing, you know, they're definitely going
to be focusing on nations that is a trade of
balance with the US, and luckily New Zealanders in the
US is quite a balanced trade position, and I think

(01:10):
for US, the US is very very short on beef
at the moment, you know, and they're going to be
relying heavily on us over the next few years. So
you know, I think for US, there's a lot of
water to go under the bridge. The chances of a
blanket tariff is is probably less likely than we think,
but we are watching it very closely, and we're also
seeing you know, consumers in the US also, you know,

(01:32):
are very up in arms around the impact of increasing
food prices with those as well, so we're monitoring it.
You know, a lot of waters to go under the bridge.
But you know, as farms, we're really good at sort
of managing sort of geopolitical and trade changes. You know,
we export to over sefty countries.

Speaker 1 (01:50):
You've got a bit you've got to be on top
of that. You've got you when you're when you're a
really exported like us, how is how how are exports
doing generally in the sixth at the moment? How are
exportstone how are we.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
Preparing We've just come off our farmer roadshows and we've
shared a lot of optimism as we move into twenty
twenty five. You know, we're seeing some big global supply
dynamics swimming back into our favor, which is going to
be good for our farmers. And then what we're also
seeing on the back of climate change and some you know,
other large producer nations, food security is becoming a real

(02:22):
concern for some of our high value customers offshore. So
that's another positive sign for New Island. And so you know,
we start to see that see both of those play out,
and you know, already in the Q the last quarter
of this year, we're seeing land pricing recover well, you know,
back up over the eight dollar mark, and that's favorable,
and we're seeing that continue into into twenty twenty five.

(02:42):
The UK is going to be short, and we're seeing
some good year on the year price and on beef,
you know, some record pricing out the farm gate at
this point in time, particularly off the back of the
US being very short, and we're seeing that going to
be continuing for some time as well. So lots of
tailwinds which our farmers desperately need. So we're looking forward

(03:02):
to a pretty exciting twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
This Canada's dispute that we've gotten. We've had Todd McLay
over in Canada meeting with them to talk about it
in the last couple of days. Anything to do with
red Meter or is this all a dairy thing.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
Yeah, it's all a dairy thing, so I think we're
pretty safe there.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Nice all right, Dan, thank you very much for being
with us. Really appreciate it. Dan Bolton, SilverFin Farms, Chief Executive.
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