“If you are planning to buy store cattle this spring then start watching store prices from late July so you have a good handle on market conditions. Once buyers start to re-enter the market prices tend to jump quickly,” iFarm analyst Mel Croad said.
Despite this year’s unfavourable seasonal conditions slaughter prices for cattle have held up well on the basis of stronger international prices and a softer dollar.
Investment in grass
The Government will invest $7.3 million over the next five years in an agricultural research partnership to improve pasture grasses and lift the performance of livestock farming.
Pastoral Genomics is an industry-led research partnership between DairyNZ, Beef + Lamb New Zealand, Grasslands Innovation, NZ Agriseeds, DEEResearch, AgResearch and Dairy Australia whose objective is to provide pastoral farmers with better forage cultivars that will increase productivity, profitability and environmental sustainability of this country’s pastoral farming systems.
Government funding is provided through the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment’s research partnerships programme and will be matched by industry funding.
The partnership intends to use non-regulated biotechnologies, including genomic selection that does not involve genetic modification, to help progress breeding and commercialisation of high-performing forages for grazing livestock.
The forage cultivars are expected to have improved nutritional content and be more resilient to drought and disease.
