Australian Lamb Trade

Press, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22017, 15 February 1937, Page 8

Australian Lamb Trade

In an interview printed on Saturday, an Australian stock agent who is in New Zealand buying English breeds of sheep predicted a large expansion of the lamb trade of his part of the Commonwealth—South Australia. The significance of the determination of Australia to enter the meat market is not that Australian meat is likely to displace New Zealand meat, particularly lamb, on the English market, but that the English market is already so plentifully supplied that an end to further expansion is quitedefinitely in sight. New Zealand has natural advantages of soil and climate that make the Dominion pre-eminently suitable for the fattening of sheep and lambs for export, and there is in the general pastoral conditions of New Zealand a not easily definable factor which assures the production with little trouble of meat of a quality unsurpassed anywhere in the world. Australian conditions of climate are by no means so favourable, as the agent was quick to' point out, and in quality, the New Zealand product will always have an advantage provided farmers make use to the full of what nature in this country offers them. Australia is already a serious competitor with r|ew Zealand in the meat markets of Great Britain, and in no small measure the recent talk of quotas and levies has been due to the rapid expansion of Australian meat exports to the Home markets. Some relief has been given by the Argentine agreement, which has limited exports from that quarter, but there is a determined effort by British farmers to increase their own supplies, and a sympathetic government sees that they have every opportunity 6f competing on the most favourable terms. To a very large extent the expansion of prosperity in Great Britain has saved the meat industry from come form of restriction which might well be disastrous to the economy of this country, because with rising prosperity, Britain has been able to buy more meat. However, though the end cf this expansion is not yet clearly in sight, a time must come when England will be forced to curtail imports. At that time, the heavier Australian exports, and presumably heavier exports from New Zealand, will force a most dangerous condition. South Australian farmers are buying many suitable New Zealand sheep, and have determined to use large areas of hitherto relatively unproductive land for growing meat. New Zealand starts with a great advantage in her superior soil and climate, but New Zealand farmers must realise that to retain their position on the London market in the face of growing competition, they will have to concentrate on quality. It will possibly prove that though quality will be expensive to achieve and hold, it will be the only claim this country has to consideration over its competitors, particularly competitors within the Empire.