Market for hides and skins falls
A Southland slink skins company says it will no longer pick up dead lambs or calves from farms as the global demand for leather falls.
Prices on international markets have fallen, affecting lambskins used for gloves and clothing.
New Zealand earned $371 million from hides and skins exports for the year to the end of May, compared to $455 million for the year before.
Southland company Slinkskins Ltd has said it will no longer pick up ‘‘slinks’’ (dead lambs) or dead calves off farms. In the case of lambs, it had a two-year backlog of skins to process, in the case of calves, prices had fallen.
The decision means farmers in Otago and Southland will have to look for another way to dispose of the animals.
‘‘The prices we can achieve from selling calfskins are so far below what we can produce them for that it’s a simple and unacceptable loss that we’re not prepared to take,’’ general manager Jonny Hazlett said.
‘‘They’re a commodity product widely available, there’s a lack of demand for them, the prices are 50 per cent of what they were two years ago. We’re not going to provide a service to farmers for a massive loss.’’
While the market for lambskins was improving, Slinkskins had significant stock left over, so had mothballed collecting any from Southland farms for a year, as well as dead cows and calves.
‘‘Farmers will just have to deal with them. In some areas, there will be collection networks still going; in Southland, there won’t be. I’m sure it’s a worry to councils,’’ Hazlett said.
Environment Southland compliance manager Simon Mapp said: ‘‘At this stage, we have no concerns. We expect farmers to use their offal pits in a responsible manner in accordance with our rules.’’
Ted Holbert from Wallace Corporation, the Waikato company responsible for most of the North Island’s ‘‘casualty stock’’ collection, said lambs were easier to dispose of than cows and calves.
Even so, he estimated there might be 500,000 slink lambs usually picked up in the South Island; in the North Island, with fewer sheep and a warmer climate, there were about 40,000 a year.
Holbert said his company took away casualty cows as a service to farmers.
‘‘We make a huge loss in the offseason but we’ve been doing this for 80-odd years. In the busy season from August to November we employ 145 collectors.’’
Italy, China, Vietnam, Australia and India are the largest market for New Zealand hides and skins. Calfskins are converted into handbags and clothing, while about half of the world’s leather is used for shoes.
Holbert said there were other collectors in the South Island who might be able to do the job that Slinkskins had done in the past.
Besides tanning the hides, Wallace Corporation also renders casualty cows into products such as blood and bone.