Rise of easy-care, big money sheep

Fine wool investment in an industry and government-led project is expected to pay off for merino farmers by billions of dollars, but it may be some time before it comes together.

A ‘‘fit-for-market’’, easy-care and highly productive fine wool sheep, earning wool, meat and other revenues is the target of the $34 million New Zealand Sheep industry Transformation Project (NZSTX) which is part of the government-and industryfunded Primary Growth Partnership programme.

NZ Merino Company (NZM) chief executive John Brakenridge said parts of the project would take many years to complete, but initial results were bringing extra income to merino farmers.

The potential payoff could extend to billions of dollars by the 2029 target for NZSTX, he said.

‘‘The answer is yes, but it’s over time. If something like this had started 10 to 15 years ago we wonder where the sheep industry would be now with better differentiated meat and greater sophistication in markets for fibre.

‘‘Given the speed of changes with genomics and greater affordability, the scope for significant change for the type of sheep we have in this country and the meat and wool they grow could be quite transformational to the sheep industry. It should be a multibillion-dollar industry that is quite complementary to the dairy industry.’’

He said disheartened sheep farmers looking at high dairy returns needed to know that serious work was going on.

NZM has delivered more than $125m of contracts in the last 18 months to merino and other fine wool farmers to supply brands such as Icebreaker and SmartWool. Merino represents 5 per cent of the total wool clip and 15 per cent of its value with demand increasing for apparel.

Merino farmers also received a new oneyear contract for 200,000 young sheep this month on the back of the three-year prototype contracts for merino meat branded as Silere alpine origin merino by Silver Fern Farms (SFF) with NZM. The contract is above current meat schedule levels.

Brakenridge said the rollover of the contract with SFF was meaningful.

The continuity of supplying the merino meat would allow NZM and SFF to ‘‘push the boat harder’’ to select international markets, he said.

‘‘Not only brands, but all the production science and quite a lot of this work takes a lot of time, but it’s important this work is continuing. We are looking at the now, near and future. The now we have some momentum with and we have the prototypes to grow from and have a vibrant sheep industry.’’

Brakenridge said the project was about unlocking the potential within an industry that had lost 3490 sheep daily since 1990 – 18 tonnes of lost wool daily.

Brakenridge gave Primary Industries Minister Nathan Guy a progress report on the NZSTX project.

The project is expected to develop a more profitable sheep with high-quality wool and meat sought by premium markets with high lamb survival, growth rates and disease resistance including against footrot.