The Country 04/11/25: Tom Young talks to Jamie Mackay

Affco’s National Livestock Manager comments on red meat prospects after leading academic Keith Woodford suggested the lamb schedule could be in for a big correction by Christmas.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
He's the National Livestock Manager for AFCA. His name is
Tom Young, based out of a very dry and worryingly
dry Hawks Bay. I'm going to come back to that time,
but I want to talk about red meat prices up
thirty percent. This is beef and lamb since twenty twenty four.
Professor Keith Woodford, who I rarely respect and admire, writing
in The Farmer's Weekly, said it is a sweet spot

(00:23):
that won't be maintained and he's picking a big fall
in the LAMB schedule come Christmas. Is Keith glass half
empty on this one?

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Well, Jamie, yep, I'm not convinced there's going to be
a big, big fall. There'll be the normal. I think
there'll be the normal backing offen schedules. You know, we're
sitting around eleven dollar mark on LAMB now on both islands.
And I would say, and I'm guessing a wee bit
here because no one knows the future, but I would
say LAMB might beck. It's way down to nine fifty

(00:54):
preps even if you're lucky ten dollars at the bottom
of the schedule. But I don't I can't confirm that.
But that's a bit of the best guess from me.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Well, farmers would grab that with two hands, wouldn't they.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Well, he would have thought, so, yes, one hundred percent.

Speaker 1 (01:06):
Yeah, okay, Well maybe Keith's glass half empty. I must
get him on the show. I always enjoy what he
has to say. So he's sort of painting a brighter
picture for beef than for lamb.

Speaker 2 (01:16):
Yeah, yeah, I mean beef. I mean beef money is
a record levels too. I mean it's in the nine
dollars range for born Prime now on both islands, and
that'll go through a normal decline I guess in schedule value.
So we sort of probably see a dollar to a
dollar fifty coming out of the beef, so you might

(01:37):
end up, you know, somewhere high sevens eight dollars or
something for a prime steer and a ball. So it's
so I'm going to collapse and fall out of bed
and I think a few you know, middle of summer
January something like that. If we were back at eight
dollars or a bit better than eight for born Prime,
most farmers would be pretty pretty happy with that.

Speaker 1 (01:54):
Well, some of those cattle are literally black gold.

Speaker 2 (01:58):
Yeah, they sure are. And if they're putting on a
I suppose a kila karcasswait a day or perhaps a
bit more, seven days a week and you're you're getting
nine dollars a sort of a kilo. You're making sixty
odd dollars a week. So things are going pretty well
if you've got some good cattle.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
So what are we expecting livestock numbers wise? You guys
are going to have to crunch the numbers because now
you've got a strengthened Alliance group to go up against
presumably YEP.

Speaker 2 (02:26):
So look, the competition irrespective of what Alliance does, the
competition was never going to go out of the livestock
procurement game. They are enough processes involved in trying to
secure stock that is always highly competitive, and I don't
think that's ever going to be any different. And certainly

(02:46):
you know, there was a big drop in numbers last
year lead numbers and beef numbers to be honest, in
both islands, so that'll keep the competitive tension there. I
very much doubt that'll ever go away. And it's again,
we've got plenty of capacity around us, probably arguably too much,
so I would expect that will sort of drive behaviors

(03:09):
from there on out.

Speaker 1 (03:09):
Were you quietly wishing the line's tipped over.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Well, we do our thing. We're pretty comfortable with how
we're going. We've got two plants in the South Island
that go pretty well and Traders obviously Traders South Pacific
Meat is wholly owned by FC. We've got seven in
the North Island and they go pretty well too. We've
got a good team of livestock buyers. We try and
pay a good competitive price and be fair with everyone

(03:33):
we deal with. So yeah, we're pretty happy with what
we're doing.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Talk to me about the dry and hawk Spain.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
Yeah, So, I mean it's getting a little bit desperate now.
We've had some everyone's had the wind, I think across
both islands, but we've had extreme heat with it. So
we've had a number of thirty degree days back to
back with pretty fierce sort of easterly nor westerly wins.
So the place is pretty baked now. So it's a
bit of a shame really, But I guess I guess

(04:01):
anyone that's selling store lambs, they're getting pretty well paid.
So he's a good market for stock if you have
to go store. So it sort of all is not
lost just yet.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
And a final one for you. You used to work
with the bloke by the name of Mark Delatour at AFCO. Yes,
now he's gone to Greater Heights or has he as
is the chief executive of Open Country Dairy. Now he
always turns left when he gets onto a plane. Do
you do that? At AFCO?

Speaker 2 (04:29):
We go whichieve all way. There's money to be made, Jamie,
That's how we work it.

Speaker 1 (04:33):
Thank you very much for your time. I was going
to call you Mark Delatour. I might stick with Tom Young.
That's an unsoldier compliment. Hey, thanks to in time, and
I hope you do get some rain and Hawk's Bay
no probad all.

Speaker 2 (04:48):
Thanks lot, Jerry,