Lesson Of The Drought: U.K. Wants Light Lambs

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30038, 24 January 1963, Page 9

Lesson Of The Drought: U.K. Wants Light Lambs

(By P. J. FREETH) When the worst drought in 30 years hit Hawke’s Bay last summer, farmers were forced to quit their lambs early. Ironically, these were the lambs the meat trade scrambled to buy at Smithfield. Many of them had a dressed weight of 301 b or less. They were prime—not fat. New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board representatives in London are adamant that what the British trade demands—and is prepared to pay a premium for —is the lean, lightweight lamb of the standardised type butchers have been accustomed to getting from this country.

One man with his finger very firmly on the market pulse is an Englishman, Mr L. St J. Godsland. who reports weekly to the board on grading and on trends in market prices and demand. In the seclusion of the board’s London office in Chancery lane, just off the bustling traffic stream of Holborn. Mr Godsland told this correspondent emphatically: “We don't want the fat lamb let alone the overfat. The Hawke's Bay drought may have hit farmers hard but it produced a lamb exactly suited to British requirements”

Zealous watchdogs of the New Zealand sheep farmers’ interests. Mr Godsland and the chief of the London office,

Mr D. L M. Martin, are convinced too that New Zealand can do no better than the Southdown Romney lamb which has been the basis of this country’s steadily expanding export trade They have no quarrel with farmers, scientists or farm advisers who want to raise lambing percentages by crossing with other breeds But they emphasise that these crossbred ewes should be mated back to the Down ram to produce the required lamb. Substance is given to these remarks by the fact that sections of the meet trade have gained such confidence in the standardised New Zealand produce that they are prepared to buy direct from the store without even seeing it. Mlb U.K. Lambs

The British farmer, too, has been exhorted to produce a light-weight product but so far he has steadily ignored the plea. With a flush of grass in the autumn and a highly subsidised price it has paid him to kill at 50 or 90 pounds even though the return a pound may not be quite so high. The New Zealand lamb kill for Britain has now reached the 18 million carcases a year mark. Home lamb production is expanding and a proportion of the market has been taken by the broiler chicken industry. These factors have had a depressing effect on price in the very sensitive Smithfield market but Meat Board representatives in London are not yet prepared to concede that the lamb market is '‘saturated" Further expansion in British consumption of New Zealand lamb depends, they say. on the continued production of a lean product Uniform New Zealand lamb carcases hanging among the cosmopolitan array of meat at Smithfield certainly present a heart-warming sight As the Meat Board office readily concedes, these carcases may not be in perfect condition by the time they reach the consumer but to the New Zealand visitor the wonder is that they reach a butcher's shop in as good shape as they do. Smithfield is no model of efficiency and nor are toe London docks. From toe tom they leave toe ship until they reach a shop, carcases are handled many tones Archaic ■aaffifag Methods At London docks on a warm summer day I saw New Zealand lamb coming ashore from the Corinthie. Down they came K at a tone to slings to be dumped on small sorting tables on toe wharf. Then

they were taken off in hand- i carts to congested vehicle < loading bays which a Meat ; Board dock survey described i as being designed for the days of the horse and cart. 1 There is still only one < mechanical conveyor system ] at the docks and that is used 1 for bananas. i Best facilities at the port j are offered at Z shed, Vic- 1 toria Dock, but these are ; rarely used by ships unload- , ing New Zealand produce. 1 Built originally for the South American chilled beef trade, 1 Z shed has ample room for 1 motor and rail trucks and j allows dockers to work under 1 cover. Ironically, the dock- j ers call it pneumonia comer i because of its exposed posi- j tion, | One of the worst faults in ( the unloading of the New Zealand lamb—and one that ; cannot be blamed entirely on the Port of London Authority . —is the delay in sorting car- ■ cases on the wharf. This, , according to a dock surveyor, arises from the mixing of j lamb for different importers in the ship's hold. ( The same man said that . lamb going into cold store at ■ the docks was frequently , loaded into rail trucks on one ' side of a set of lines, shunted . about and then unloaded on ■ the other. All this, of course, j means extra handling. , At Smithfield, biggest meat j market in the world, the , übiquitous handcart is seen . once again, this time manned , by a small army of porters . who scurry about the alley- j ways of the market and in j the lanes outside like ants around sugar. ( Built in 1870 on a site , where martyrs were once , burned ait the stake, Smith- ' field had to adapt itself to • an ever-increasing through- , put The halls of the market . beneath their dome-shaped . roofs are cluttered and ] cramped but a new poultrymarket now being built should help to relieve the congestion. Smithfield is important because it tends to set die pattern of prices for all British imports of frozen and chilled meat. Last year out of a total import ot 700,000 tons the market handled 323.000 tons and this included 100,000 tons of mutton and lamb. Exports of New Zealand lamb and mutton to Britain in 1961 amounted to 289.400 tons out of a total home and overseas supply of 611.000 tons. Of the New Zealand total 49.000 tons went through Smithfield. Early Start Each day the market is - early astir. Loaded ait cool store or ship side, the lorries . bring their meat to Smith- , field by hitfiL The handcart brigade goes into action and the meat is bung between midnight and 5 a.m. when the buyers arrive to start the morning’s business. Smithfield is at once a place of barter and a social club Everybody knows one another and the banter flies thick and fart. Business is done by private treaty with buyers circulating among sellers and the tone of the market for the day is quickly established. “Hullo there Charles,” a i seller will call, “Still looking for the cheap stuff?" "Yes, Jim." the buyer will reply. "Cheap but good and , it doesn’t look an tbougi you've got it” Then a price will be mentioned and the buyer will move off with a disdainful shrug. "See you later, Jim," he vffl say. "I think I’ll just shop around." And in shopping around the buyer wffl have a wide variety to choose from. New Zealand lamb in its neat stocktagette baffi might be J bung alongside beef from Jugoslavia—not a particularly’

attractive looking morsel but one that has become a standard product in keen demand ait Smithfield. Unloaded from the lorries by hand, meat is taken to all quarters of the market in highly piled handcarts. The top carcases can fall off and sometimes do. When there is no room for meat to be hung it is stacked near ground level on wooden pallets or stainless steel trays.

After the meat is sold the handcarts go into action again, this time to the accompanimenit of strident cries of “mind yer back” as the porters accelerate along the now crowded alleyways. A fascinating place the market, but it is best not to wear a good suit. New Zealand Meat Board representatives agree that within the limits of their somewhat antiquated facilities Smithfield and the London docks do a fairly good job. Since the docks have recently come under scrutiny from a commission of inquiry there is a likelihood of some improvement but the meat market is a different story.

At Smithfield tradition is so well entrenched that a young and enterprising member i of the meat trade was derided by the doyens when he introduced a small vehicle with an electric motor to transport handcarts full of meat to his store half a mile away. He went ahead with his project but no one copied him. Meat Board representatives say that to make Smithfield modem would require a considerable injection of capital which is not likely to be forthcoming. The market can best be summed up in that classic English phrase “It may seem odd to you but it works.”

Mr Freeth. who is agricultural correspondent of the “New Zealand Herald,” recently spent six months in Britain as an Imperial Relations Trust bursar. In this article Mr Freeth discusses the United Kingdom market for New Zealand lamb.