The largest global supplier of wool socks in the active outdoor market wants to step up its wool contract with New Zealand merino growers, worth more than $100 million the last nine years. A top executive team from the United States company SmartWool will meet wool farmers at a North Canterbury function centre on Monday reports Stuff.

The company has indicated it will extend orders for New Zealand- grown merino and mid-micron wool in its partnership with The New Zealand Merino Company (NZM) from double-digit growth projected each year for the next three years. SmartWool will go into more detail at the meeting about its increasing demand for 18 to 26 micron wool and give farmers volume and price projections for its wool requirements to meet growing orders.

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Meat processor Silver Fern Farms is working on replacement funding for an existing $75 million of bonds reports Business Day. The $75m tranche is due to mature in December and the meat processing co-operative is mulling options including a further bond issue or alternative funding from banks.

SFF had about $184.5m of debt at August 31. It needs capital or further facilities to help pay debt that is rolling over and to continue its farm-pasture-to-customer-plate marketing strategy. SFF’s previous capital-raising plan ended with a splutter rather than a surge with farmer suppliers only ploughing in about $22m of new equity, much less than originally envisaged.

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Blaming sheep farmers for the loss of 43 jobs at AgResearch is akin to blaming investors for the failure of a finance company. Instead, the focus needs to turn to the private sector to unlock new wool fibre uses reports Scoop.“I think this is a tragedy for the research staff involved and for NZ It highlights a massive gulf between what is expected from research and what’s actually being put into the field,” says Don Nicolson, Fed Farmers President.

“But with the national flock less than half the peak of 70 million reached in 1982, research monies have simply followed this 28-year realignment. AgResearch is basing its business plan on where the sheep industry is, not where it once was. “For wool to be on a par with 1980s returns, it ought to be a $2.8 billion export but now it’s down to just under $500 million. It’s simply wrong to blame farmers for pulling the wool levy when our returns have collapsed.

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Murray Horn, former Treasury secretary and head of ANZ Banking Group’s New Zealand arm, has been tapped to help lure warring factions of the wool sector out of their trenches to create a new industry good bodyreports Scoop. Horn will act as an independent convenor and will call a meeting of wool sector organisations to begin the process of forming a single voice for the industry, said Agriculture Minister David Carter.

Horn’s appointment stems from the work of the Wool Taskforce, which Carter convened last year in the wake of the grower vote to dump Meat & Wool New Zealand’s wool levy. The group reconvened last month to consider the Wool taskforce report: Restoring Profitability to the Strong Wool Sector, which recommended a marketing strategy focusing on wool’s heritage and green credentials.

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Crossbred wool auction prices have stabilised after making a strong recovery from the lows of last year’s world recession reports Business Day. Prices for best-style clean fleece and second shear are up 20% to $3.50 a kilogram on prices in July and August; good lamb’s wool is up 15% to $4.30 and oddments are up 30% to $2.70.

Wool was last at these levels towards the end of 2008 when it was on its way down from a high of $4 a kilogram at the height of the world commodities boom. Wool exports earned NZ $576 million in the year to March last year and the Agriculture and Forestry Ministry estimated in July 2009 that this year’s export returns would fall to $458m.

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Commentators are continuing to express confidence in the future of the meat industry, more so than farmers. Rabobank’s Australian-based animal protein senior analyst, Wendy Voss, told farmers in Central Otago last week that demand for all meat was expected to grow 20% in the next decade, at a time supplies were forecast to continue falling reports The ODT.

That extra demand would come from developing nations and would outstrip supply, Ms Voss said. “The outlook for Australia and NZ sheep meat and beef is very positive,” she told 300 farmers at the SI High Country committee’s biennial field day in the Nevis Valley. Ms Voss said fluctuating prices had caused a global decline in the supply of sheep meat and beef.

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The Government may look at opening some conservation land to livestock grazing as a way for the Department of Conservation to generate income reports The ODT. Agri Minister David Carter told about 300 farmers in Central Otago last week that finding ways to generate income from a conservation estate that grew in size under the previous government was a looming issue, and allowing strictly controlled grazing to licensed farmers could be a solution.

“That, to me, makes perfect sense,” he said at the Fed Farmers high country committee two-yearly field day in the Nevis Valley last Wednesday. Don Clarke, of Carrick Station, told the field day that he had found grazing of the upright-growing invasive weed, Hieracium lepidulum, could control its spread. Mr Carter repeated his support for the greater use of conservation covenants administered through organisations such as the QEII Trust, saying it was “a sensible” way to achieve biodiversity protection and allow economic use of land.

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The benefits of a good winter feeding schedule that leads to ewes having better body conditions scores (BCS) at the start of lambing was highlighted at a field day last week reports The Southland Times. More than 200 farmers attended the Meat & Wool New Zealand Southern South Island sheep and beef council field day at the Woodlands research farm on Wednesday.

Dr David Stevens, of AgResearch, said it was clear poor winter feeding affected several aspects of production before, during and after lambing, and it was essential for good lamb growth, particularly multiples, to have ewes in good condition. “You’re no longer expecting one lamb and 5 kilograms of wool.”

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Two women directors have been elected to the Meat and Wool New Zealand board, displacing men already involved in the industry’s power structures reports Business Day. Kirsten Bryant, of Fordell, has been elected to represent the Western North Island ward and Anne Munro of Fairlie, to represent the Central South Island.

Mrs Bryant was elected with 9620 votes, beating Manawatu farmer Tony Gray (5879) for a seat in which Ron Frew did not seek re-election. The voting return percentage was only 25.25 percent, even though Mr Gray is Federated Farmers’ Manawatu/Rangitikei meat and fibre chairman. During campaigning Mrs Bryant said she was motivated to stand when farmers in her area told Agriculture Minister David Carter that hill country farming was on its last legs.

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It is technically autumn, but most of the country is still basking in summer. We are all feeling pretty pleased about that, but sheep and beef farmers’ grins are the widest reports Jon Morgan from the Dom Post. After three years of drought on the North Island’s east coast, its farmers are revelling in the greenness of their hills. And it’s the same all over – except for Northland, which is experiencing a drought for the first time in more than 10 years.

And even in Northland all is not lost. Farmers from further down the island are turning up at stock sales in Wellsford and Kaikohe to buy weaner steers at prices that will help lift sagging spirits. For dairy farmers, the joys of a green summer come mainly from less stress on their cows, although the slightly increased milk they are giving will mean a timely lift in profits in a high payout year. Fonterra reports milk flow is almost 2 per cent up on last year, despite the Northland drought, though a big contributor is the new South Island conversions.

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