Flood-culled beef heads to US burger chains
Flood-ravaged farmers are sending animals to slaughter but don’t expect the price of scotch fillet, prime rib or brisket to be any cheaper at the butcher.
Local retail supply would be unaffected as flood-culled beef was destined for US appetites, Agrihq analyst Rachel Agnew said.
‘‘That’s manufacturing beef [ground beef] that all goes to the United States and none of it is consumed domestically,’’ she said.
The country was hit by flooding after two major weather events in April - ex-tropical cyclones Debbie and Cook.
Bay of Plenty and the town of Edgecumbe with 600 homes bore the brunt of Debbie when the Rangitaiki River burst its banks on April 6. Then the already saturated lower reaches of the Waikato River and Hauraki District succumbed to Cook, leaving paddocks inundated and farmers scrambling to move stock.
About 2000 cows in Waikato and more than 5000 in the Bay of Plenty have been dried off for the season or culled.
‘‘Slaughter rates have increased over the last couple of weeks through the processors and the weather has pushed that forward because most would have likely continued to milk a bit later given the good feed situation,’’ Agnew said.
But slaughter rates had increased across the entire North Island, Agnew said. There are multiple factors at play, not just the floods. ‘‘It’s just the time of year where people start making cow cull decisions. You can’t attribute the entire increase to the flooding.’’
Waikato, Hauraki and Coromandel Rural Support Trust Neil Bateup said damage from the April floods in the Waikato, Bay of Plenty and other parts of the country had quickened the need for farmers to send cows to the meatworks.
Farmers had plans in place to deal with lost pasture but those destocking would lose the last month of milk production before winter.