Livestock decline

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32885, 7 April 1972, Page 3

Livestock decline

<N.Z. Press Association/ WELLINGTON, April 6. Total killings and export meat production cannot increase much above the level for last season because of a decline in the total number of animals available in New Zealand, according to the livestock manager for Thomas Borthwick and Son (Mr A. Watson). He said in a statement that a decline had been evident in the number of sheep and dairy cattle over the last tow years, while there had been an increase in the number of beef cattie. "The recent introduction of the sheep retention cheme highlights the present state of sheepfarming in New Zealand.” Mr Watson said. “The emphasis on ‘sheep retention’ in the application of this scheme is a response

by the Government to the realisation that total sheep numbers have declined by 1,300,000 at June, 1971, compared with one year earlier.” Mr Watson said he had examined the latest available information on total livestock numbers, to see if the decline in sheep numbers was a shift in emphasis away from sheep to more profitable cattle farming, or if it reflected a serious drop in real growth in farm livestock production. - , His researches showed that the total sheep numbers in the country increased rapidly from 51m in 1964 to 60m in 1967. “But after the drastic fall nr wool prices of the 1967-68 season sheep numbers remained static from 1967 to i 1970, and then during the 1970-71 season there was a decline in total sheep flocks of 1.3 m,” he said. ; The number of cattle in the country had been increasing slowly before 1965, ! but in the four years to 11969 there had been a (dramatic growth in numbers,

from 6.8 m at January 31, 1965, to 8.6 m at the corresponding date in 1969. “Since 1969 the rate of increase has fallen off very sharply, particularly from January, 1970, to January, 1971," said Mr Watspn. “Much of this reduced rate of increase in total cattle is due to a reduction in total dairy cattle numbers in both 1970 and 1971,” he said. The period of little growth in livestock numbers had also been one of a high level of meat production, because of the small retention of livestock for growth in capital stock. If increased meat production were to come about without using capital stock to fill the works there would be a stagnation in the industry, Mr Watson said. “Unless there are some rather dramatic changes in the economic climate for Bek fanning the reble growth of may well become the stagnation and decline of the seventies, with falling levels of production for both meat land wool,”-he said. ■ \