Going by historical information we are still a month out from seeing any new season store lamb volume at the yards or in the paddock, but it is as good a time as ever to look back on the past year’s prices and budget for this year’s lamb crop.
Stortford Lodge and Feilding are the first sale yards to get under way, given that their regions are earlier lambing, and Stortford Lodge nearly always kicks off with an annual draft consignment of mixed-sex Southdown-cross lambs from Te Aute. Typically, these will appear mid-October while South Island yards get rolling a month later.
For the sake of this article, price averages have been taken from the first four weeks of steady new season lamb volume at Stortford Lodge, Feilding, Canterbury Park and Temuka.
Since 2015, we have been on an upwards trajectory in store lamb prices at auction, and the price difference between 2015 and 2019 averages out at an increase of $2.00-$2.20/kg LW, or $54-$57 for most yards. Nearly half of that increase occurred between the 2018 and 2019 seasons as the latter showed growth of $20-$30 year-on-year for the North Island yards.
The North Island yards averaged over $5.00/kg LW for those early lambs at 26kg LW and South Island yards were relatively strong as well at $3.96-$4.25/kg for 25-28kg LW.
All the ducks lined up for sellers of those early lambs in 2019, but in 2020 the ducks are certainly not staying in formation. However, within our shores the markets have held up well despite what the world has thrown at it and lamb schedules are showing some promise, so there are reasonably positive sentiments heading into the new season lamb market.
Prices this season have been sitting on the top or just above five-year average levels and the most likely scenario this year is that we will see prices in those first four weeks fall somewhere between 2017 and 2018 levels. Lamb schedules are shaping up to be better than 2017, though not as high as 2018, and factoring in feed levels but potentially lower lamb supply, it is likely that a 26kg lamb should trade around the $90-$100 mark, but time will tell.
