Sheep and beef sector leaders are being urged to put away the knives, dump their pessimistic and negative attitudes and work together for the good of the industry. M&WNZ chairman Mike Petersen, who yesterday announced the organisation’s name change to Beef and Lamb NZ, seven months after sheep farmers voted to dump the $6.3 million wool levy, vented his frustration at the organisation’s AGM, held at the Waitomo Cultural and Arts Centre in Te Kuiti.

Mr Petersen said short term negative thinking was stifling the sector’s opportunities reports The Waikato Times. “I am not expecting everyone to become a cheerleader for the sector. However, it is time that industry leaders and leaders within the wider farming community put away the knives and fought for this sector more than they are doing now,” he said.

(more…)

Behind-the-scenes efforts are under way to find a new funding stream to train shearers and shedhands. Agriculture industry training organistion chief executive Kevin Bryant said he was working closely with M&WNZ and others in the wool industry ahead of a series of meetings to try and find a replacement for the $300,000 farmers provided to fund the training of shearers and shedhands.

Chaiman Mike Petersen said the board’s chairman, Scott Champion, would convene a meeting in the next few weeks to discuss the industry contributing to the training of shearers, woolhandlers and classers. Those invited to attend include the Council of Wool Exporters, the NZ Merino Company, Woolpartners, Elders Primary Wool and shearing contractors.

“The fact is farmers said no to the wool levy so we obviously lost $300,000 of M&WNZ contribution and that leveraged close to $1.5 million of government money which allowed us to provide subsidised training to over 1000 shearers and woolhandlers through a partnership with Tectra.” If the industry did not contribute to training, then neither would the Government, but Mr Bryant said farmers could end up paying anyway.

(more…)