No room for sentiment in efficient business

Central North Island’s Horizons region is one of the world’s biggest lamb exporting areas and Will Morrison’s family farming enterprise is in the heart of it.

He’s a young farmer who’s proud of the long view from the high hill MangaRa Station his family bought just four years ago, supplementing the lush flats land they’ve owned since 1864.

But there’s no sentiment in his approach to agriculture, the 4,000 breeding ewes and 450 Hereford cows that run on this high land or the stock he finishes on the lower ground.

Looking across to the sharp, steep slopes that would attract Less Favoured Areas support in Scotland, he says he is “proud and pleased” that he farms entirely in a free market where efficiency is paramount and questions that dominate British farming appear to be irrelevant . “Breeds aren’t important,” he said. “Instead we have our own composite programme which is focused on traits and high performance.

“We need a high-fecundity ewe flock which can lamb unassisted, and we aim for over 150 per cent lambing, with lambs finished before Christmas.

“We need economically viable, profitable herds and flocks and we’re in partnerships with the meat companies which are looking at what’s happening internationally. “It’s a team effort.” So would subsidies change the way he farms?

“I’ve no doubt they would. But in New Zealand we are unfamiliar with subsidies now and so we have to run profitable businesses, learning about markets and being nimble with our own expertise,” he said.

“It’s important to not have someone paying us to do something differently other than the market; to be purely market-driven to supply the world with the beef and lamb it’s demanding.

“We aren’t given any influences that may mean we are less able to do that or less efficient or may mean we can sleep in a few extra hours in the morning.

“We have to do it with our intelligence and skill.”

Mr Morrison regrets the resentment UK sheep farmers feel when cheap New Zealand lamb dominates supermarket shelves, and insists it’s not something his country’s farmers aim to do.

“As a sheep farmer I would love for all sheep farmers around the world to be as happy, enthusiastic and economic as my business,” he said.

“But there are many steps between me and the supermarkets in the UK which are selling my lamb, and that’s out of my control.

“At the moment I’m getting $90 for a lamb and it will be a hard season to be profitable at those levels.”

Despite the current prices, he’s confident about the future and the family business is investing heavily in infrastructure. Planes fly over these hills twice a year to spread fertiliser; a quarter of a million dollars has been spent on piping water to new troughs in remote paddocks and 4km of stock fencing is being set up every year at a cost of $10,000/km in order to improve rotations for ewes and cows.

So are the lambs born on MangaRa destined for UK markets? Will says it’s not as simple as that.

“We often make the mistake of thinking one lamb goes to one country. NZ companies take it and break it down into a range of cuts, so one lamb may be made into 80 products which go to 30-40 countries around the world.

“That collection of products changes throughout the year and from year to year. So, like our farmers, our meat companies have got very nimble at having relationships to get the best return for meat they can to pay the farmers.”

His message to British farmers who fear a future without subsidies is simple: “We are better off now and our businesses and culture and communities are thriving. Without subsidies here we are more than comfortable.

“I can’t give UK farmers answers, other than to say if it plays out like it has done for us, you will hopefully be fine.”

Pictures: Nancy Nicolson. Will Morrison is a director of Morrison Farming.