Exploring options for dairy sheep industry

milk market.

However growing markets of increasingly westernised Asian consumers with lower lactose tolerance were drawn to a product that was also more concentrated than cow’s milk.

Sheep’s milk averages 18-19 per cent milk solids, compared to about 12 per cent for cow’s milk. Returns from the milk were typically about $2 a litre, or $17 a kg milk solids.

Nuffield Scholar Lucy Griffiths has identified some of the short-term issues facing the industry in its efforts to expand.

A key one was the need to avoid the usual approach to marketing bulk commodity type product and focus on high value niche products in sectors like health, infant formula and gourmet food.

She also highlighted the need to have a robust financial model to show farmers the financial benefits of investing in the dairy sheep sector.

Keith Neylon, director of dairy sheep venture Antara Ag in Southland and founder of Blue River Dairy confirmed his company was poised to expand its sheep milking numbers next year. The company has grown its genetic base to a point it could offer genetic stock to new farmers.

He likened any supply arrangement to a conventional dairy farmer supply agreement with a processor, receiving monthly payments for milk supplied.

“We have made a point of ensuring our growth has been very much demand led, it’s not dissimilar to what the dairy goat industry has also experienced.

“We have managed to go to number two in the world for recognition in quality and it has taken us only 10 years to achieve it. Our best cheeses are renowned globally now, including our Blackmount cheddar as a gold medal winning cheese.”

He said the scale a new dairy sheep farmer may want to operate on will depend very much upon their financial position, and how much equity they already had in their property that would enable them to adapt the farm to dairy sheep.

Bayleys New Zealand country manager Simon Anderson said the sheep milking industry offered an exciting opportunity that many pastoral farmers would not have considered before.

“It has come almost from nowhere in a very short space of time, and ticks all the boxes as a high value, premium focused product delivered from a system that is environmentally very friendly.”