September 10, 2013

Due to high cost of feed, the number of pigs farmed in New Zealandhas fallen by 40,000 over the past year, but the total tonnage of meat produced has not fallen significantly.

New Zealand Pork chairman Ian Carter said that the annual kill has fallen from about 720,000 to 680,000 and it has been a trend since 2007 when there was a spike in grain prices; it certainly put some significant pressure on.

"On top of that we've seen other land uses showing good returns so some producers have made the decision to exit, based around the value of the land for dairying and the like," Carter added.

But Carter said the 120 to 140 registered commercial producers, who are mainly based in Canterbury, are keeping tonnages up.

"What tends to happen is the more efficient producers stay behind and what we've got is a pretty specialised industry now as opposed to producers who were, say, cropping farmers with a few pigs and a dairy operation. The industry has certainly dropped in sow numbers but the productivity per sow has increased from genetic gain we've experienced over the last five years," Carter said.

The industry in New Zealand is too small for significant genetic gains to be made here without importing semen from overseas, mainly North America. "There are very strict biosecurity requirements around that; it comes in as frozen semen and fresh semen and only goes to certain farms."

Carter said the challenge for the industry is make pork more popular with New Zealand consumers. The industry is working hard on marketing and is also training New Zealand butchers to cut carcases into more convenient cuts.

Compared with overseas markets, New Zealand pigs tend to be small, averaging about 68 kilogrammes compared with 77 kilogrammes in Australia and 100 kilogrammes in North America. Carter said that is what New Zealand butchers prefer.

Carter said the New Zealand industry had learnt to live with a level of imported product, made into bacon and ham, but it remained opposed to imported pork being sold without further processing because of the risk of disease coming into the country.

"Coming into Christmas there's a great demand for legs and we just can't produce enough and we don't produce enough middles for bacon throughout 12 months but then we produce too many shoulders. The difference between us and our red meat cousins is they just export whatever is not in demand in New Zealand whereas we're solely domestic consumption and we import to balance up the demand of cuts."