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Estimated breeding values (EBVs) remain a “black box” for farmers, but scientists are working to find out more about beef and sheep genetics, said Mike Goddard, from Australia’s University of Melbourne and Victoria.

He talked to about 100 stud and commercial farmers, as well as beef industry stalwarts, at a Beef Expo celebratory breakfast, in Feilding, last week reports The Manawatu Standard.Professor Goddard said EBVs work, but there are unknown factors.”We know how EBVs work. But the genes that contribute to them – we don’t know.”He said there were many genes that contribute to factors such as growth rate, meat yield, and fertility, for example, but only one for colour.As if that is not enough of a problem, when it comes to beef breeds, markers need to be relevant across many breeds.

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The Animal Health Board (AHB) has successfully prosecuted a Waiuku farmer for the illegal sale of cattle from a bovine tuberculosis (TB) infected herd. Geoffrey William Muir pleaded guilty at the Pukekohe District Court today to moving and selling cattle in breach of a restricted place notice imposed by the AHB in June 2008.Muir was fined $30,000 and $140 court costs. The AHB was awarded $10,454 in costs and $2,500 in legal costs. Muir was convicted on four charges of failing to notify the movement of an infected herd, making a false and misleading declaration, moving cattle to a third party’s farm and knowingly selling 157 cattle from a herd that was suspected of harbouring TB reports Scoop.

AHB chief executive William McCook said the prosecution showed the AHB would take action against farmers who fail to abide by livestock movement regulations. “It is clearly unacceptable that one man put his fellow farmers at risk for his own pecuniary gain. Selling cattle from a herd that is suspected or known to harbour bovine TB could have serious consequences for the national TB control programme. “We know a vast majority of the 73,000 cattle and deer farmers in New Zealand willingly comply with movement control restrictions and expect us to come down hard on those farmers who do not.

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About a year ago, three Southland families ended their three-year stint as monitor farmers .Kaiwera farmer Robert Young is effusive in his praise of the monitor farm program that he was involved with for three years, reports The Southland Times.

“When it finished, there was a big sigh of relief of not being in the fish bowl and we were quite happy to not have any of that stuff happen for a little bit.” But with the benefit of time, he and wife Stacey realised they had got a “huge amount” out of the Meat & Wool New Zealand scheme, Mr Young said. “It improved our farming out of sight and was worth a lot of money to us.” Their profit more than doubled, he said.

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Big black angus bulls dominated the national cattle stud sales at Beef Expo this week. More than $750,000 changed hands at the sales with almost half of that being paid for angus bulls. The two top sales of $26,000 and $25,000 were angus bulls and, to round the expo off, the breed featured in the steak of origin contest to find the nation’s tastiest beef steaks.

A steak from a limousin-angus heifer raised by sisters Kathy Child and Yvonne Hill, of Whangarei, was judged the overall winner while an angus steak from Chef’s Choice, Whanganui, won the overall best of brand section for retail and wholesale butcheries. Angus also took out the first three places in the best of British breeds section. The four-day expo in Feilding is a shop window for many breeders who will be hoping to lure breeders and commercial farmers to their on- farm sales over the next two months reports The Dom Post.

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Hill country farmers are changing their attitudes to their erosion-prone country, says Agriculture and Forestry Minister David Carter. He was flown in a helicopter by Horizons Regional Council to check out flood protection in the lowland area and hill country. Mr Carter went to stopbanks on the lower Manawatu, Moutoa floodgates, Kopane Bridge and Pohangina and Turakina Valley hill country.

He said two hill country farmers he spoke to said there seemed to be a greater awareness of the erosion problem coming from the hills reports The Manawatu Standard. The sustainable land use initiative (SLUI) programme was developed around voluntary whole-farm plans which assess the farms’ physical, environmental and business resources in a structured way. They are funded by Horizons in partnership with the Government on a dollar-for-dollar deal, through MAF’s hill country erosion fund.

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A meat industry leader says if NZ processors continue to shun consolidation it is inevitable that a multinational processor will step in reports Rural News. And unless there is consolidation of meat processors here, overseas supermarket chains will continue to take the bulk share of returns. Northland farmer James Parsons points out that a low cost of production is not a competitive advantage “unless you can bank it”.

The Nuffield scholar and M&WNZ director says in the EU supply chain funnel, the power lies with the big supermarkets. In the UK, the big four supermarket chains – Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury’s and Morrisons – have boosted their market shares and collectively hold about 75% of the market. Because of their power in the supply chains, these supermarkets are able to pressure suppliers to discount prices, resulting in lower returns for farmers.

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Sheep and beef producers should pick the companies they supply carefully to avoid becoming casualties of an impending “train crash” in the industry, says the chairman of one of the key players in Rural News. Speaking at a M&WNZ monitor farm meeting in South Canterbury last week, Anzco chairman Graeme Harrison  said average return on shareholders’ funds across the four main companies is “not even the cost of capital”.

Normalised earnings figures – with exceptionals taken out to leave only meat industry activity – for the four largest meat companies over the past five years show combined earnings in 2008-09 were well below the five-year average even though turnover and assets employed increased.Average margin on sales was just 0.7%.“You can all see from these numbers a train crash is coming.”

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Meat companies do “a pretty good job” marketing their product in Europe but are often unfairly criticised for their efforts in what is an extremely sophisticated market, an agriculture academic believes. Lincoln University Professor of Farm Management and Agribusiness Keith Woodford said the EU – including the United Kingdom – took 65 per cent of New Zealand’s lamb by value, paying the best global prices reports The Southland Times.

Companies were getting better returns than for beef, so for lamb to be so well placed in price suggested someone had done something right, Dr Woodford said. “I think they’ve got Europe pretty well sussed but always, of course, they could do a little better.” He told attendees at Meat & Wool NZ’s new Meat the Future field day last week that he expected New Zealand’s meat industry would need restructuring to survive, but did not believe that would lead to a Fonterra-like mega-company. It would probably lead to two large companies – one a co-operative, the other an investor-owner – and maybe some other smaller niche businesses, he said.

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Te Pohue farm manager Peter Procter said years of losing thousands of dollars of stock and having to repair smashed gates and fences had pushed farmers to the point where they will fight back reports The NZ Herald. “I’ve had a gutsful – and so has everybody else who lives on Waitara Rd. It’s come to the crunch … if a dog sets foot on my place it will be dead and hanging on my gate for the owner to come and collect.”

Mr Proctor said he had seen too many shot and savaged livestock over the past few years on the property, off SH5, as illegal hunters target private farms and blocks for their shooting expeditions. “I’ve had poachers leave dogs on the farm overnight which have attacked sheep within a short period of time. I’ve had up to 20 ewes at once killed, and if you’ve ever seen a sheep still alive with half its face peeled off you wouldn’t think twice about shooting these kinds of dogs.”.

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