LIGHT LAMB SURPRISES

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32303, 22 May 1970, Page 6

LIGHT LAMB SURPRISES

The light weight of the New Zealand lamb carcases shipped to. Britain has surprised the director of the Grassland Research Institute at Hurley in England, Professor E. K. Woodford, who has been visiting Lincoln College for the conference of the New Zealand Grassland Association.

This is something that has also been the subject of comment by many New Zea-

land farmers visiting Britain, but the attitude of the Meat Board has been that New Zealand lamb is serving a market in large British cities where the housewife wants a small joint. But Professor Woodford said that the situation in Britain was changing fast. Modern meat technology had nothing to do with oldfashioned joints. This was happening in the beef industry in Britain where traditional ways of butchering were going by the board. There seemed to be no reason why small cuts should not be obtained from bigger carcases.

If the British housewife could be persuaded to take a bigger carcase the profitability of the industry would be markedly increased. The bigger the lamb that could be marketed the greater would be the return from a unit area. A major part of the cost of lamb production was the feeding of the ewe and anything that was obtained on top of that by virtue of bigger lambs or lambing perhaps twice every 18 months was

a bonus to the efficiency of land use. Professor Woodford believes that New Zealand should break away from traditional attitudes. British entry into the Common Market, for which he thought that the chances were about 50-50, might not be a bad thing for New Zealand in that it would encourage this country, which had a very great potential, to diversify its agriculture and increase its activities in other markets.