Help offered to U.S. lamb industry

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34072, 9 February 1976, Page 2

Help offered to U.S. lamb industry

Australia and New Zealand might be able to help a revival of the United States sheep industry by assisting it in better marketing procedures, said Mr C. Hilgendorf, chairman of the Meat Board, yesterday.

Mr Hilgendorf returned to Christchurch at the week-end after a visit to the United States with the board’s general manager (Mr H. C. M. Douglas) and the chairman of the Dominion meat and wool section of Federated Farmers (Mr T. G. McNab).

Mr Hilgendorf attended a meeting of the Lamb Promotion Co-ordinating Committee in San Angela in Texas, a committee which includes representatives of the Australian and New Zealand Meat Boards and also American iamb producers. The main talking point, Mr Hilgendorf said, had been the continuing "disastrous decline” in United States sheep numbers. If this continued for long, the American sheep business would disappear altogether, something which New Zealand felt would be most detrimental.

"We rely on them to supply some sections of the market with lamb which we can supplement,” said Mr Hilgendorf. "If we were to try to supply the whole United States market, it would be quite hopeless.”

U.S. committee The Americans had set up a committee to examine ways and means of reviving the industry. Both New Zealand and Australia were very willing to assist in any way, Mr Hilgendorf said. There were some problems, however, facing American producers which the Southern Hemisphere countries could do nothing about. One of these was with predators such as coyotes — the North American prairie wolf. There was great difficulty in persuading environmentalists that these animals were really a menace.

Obstacles were put in the way of using poisons such as 1080 to control them. But it seemed that American

I sheep producers were persuading the authorities that this was short-sighted. Still another problem for American sheep was that some people wanted Federal la.id retired from grazing by stock altogether, but here also there were hopes of a more favourable attitude. Lamb sales in Canada seemed to be going very well at present, Mr Hilgendorf said, but there was momentarily a hitch in sales in the United States. This latter development was associated with what was hoped was only a short-term downturn in the market for table beef in the United States. There was no obvious reason for this. It might well be no more than a temporary situation. At the same time, the price of manufacturing beef did not seem to have been affected.

The New Zealand group also attended the annua! gathering of the American National Cattlemen’s Association at Phoenix, Arizona. There, Mr Hilgendorf said, the New Zealanders had renewed their contention that restrictions on the quantity of New Zealand beef imported into the United States were unnecessary. This argument, however, had not been received with any great effect, the American cattlemen being determined to use all their efforts to persuade the Government to keep the import law working, probably by trying to persuade exporting countries to accept voluntary restrictions. Beef producers With Mr Douglas, Mr Hilgendorf also attended a meeting in Bermuda, which had been planned as a meeting of producers from countries which both exported and imported beef, to discuss mutual problems and perhaps reach some common conclusions.

But it had been disappointing, Mr Hilgendorf said. In practice, it consisted of representatives of the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand — countries which already had good communications with one another. The only other significant producers represented were Ireland and Mexico. There was no effective representation from Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, the United Kingdom, France, West Germany, Italy, any of the other European coimtries, or Japan. No decisions had been reached and little in the way of consensus of opinion arrived at, Mr Hilgendorf said.