KEY POINTS:
British farmers unhappy about the rising amount of chilled New Zealand lamb being sold in the UK want NZ farmers to work with them on promoting lamb in France.
"If you look at the French consumption of lamb, there is room for us all to grow," said Thomas Binns, chairman of the livestock board of Britain's National Farmers' Union.
He told a press conference in Wellington yesterday that there was scope for collaboration between New Zealand and British farmers on generic promotion of lamb in France, "irrespective of the country of origin".
"It's our responsibilities, collectively to ensure that there is an offer of lamb to consumers in France, and indeed countries around the world," he said.
Declining consumption in France meant there was a need for promotion: "France has been an important part of the European market, not only to New Zealand, but to English, Scots, Welsh and Irish farmers". They should work together to stabilise the French market.
Meat and Wool New Zealand chairman Mike Petersen said he had made an offer for a French promotion because that market was New Zealand's second-biggest in Europe.
"We look at being able to grow demand for lamb as being beneficial to both countries," he said.
Mr Petersen said he was returning to Britain in October for more talks with farmers and hoped to finalise the French promotion then.
Mr Binns said there could be scope for wider cooperation.
"I'd like to see some kind of global lamb strategic group put together," he said. "We need to explore the merits of that.
"We need to understand the global dynamics better as farmers and then we can try to influence the trade ".
There was a need to better understand global lamb production and markets, Mr Binns said. "The need for clear, concise market information is a must, not only at a domestic level but an international level as well."
"We both produce an excellent product and we need to be able to capture the value of what we do as farmers," he said.
Farmers in both NZ and Europe needed to "brainstorm" how to capture more value at the farmgate in a world with an "aggressive" supply chain, so that they could capture a bigger share of the consumer's cash.
Better understanding of the global lamb trade could be used to inform retailers and food service companies in the industry .
Questioned what difference farmers could make to decisions by the export companies and supermarket chains between them and the consumer, Mr Binns said NZ farmers needed a clearer understanding of the companies they owned, such as the Alliance and PPCS cooperatives.
"Farmers that we have met feel they would benefit from a greater deal of transparency with some of the activities of the meat companies," he said.
Mr Petersen said that discussions held with the NFU leaders this week followed meetings that he had held in the Britain during June to quell rising concerns over a flood of New Zealand lamb into British supermarkets.
Mr Petersen said there was a need for regular dialogue between the groups.
"We've had a particularly tough time, I think, for sheepmeat in the past 12 months," he said. "But we are now looking forward quite optimistically for the next 12 months and ... for the better returns which we think will eventuate".
In June, Irish farmers staged protests outside Marks and Spencer in the centre of Dublin over the lamb imports from New Zealand, and there was a torrent of criticism from other farming areas throughout the UK over the NZ lamb.
Mr Petersen said it was possible that British farmers had not understood how difficult export markets were all around the world at the time of their problems.
"We need to exchange information , probably with our counterparts in Europe more about the global situation for sheepmeat," he said. Changes in British farmers' behaviour had meant many more lambs were carried through their winter to compete with NZ sendings.
"If we'd understood a bit more about the amount of carryover stock ... and we'd talked about the difficulties the rest of the world was having with sheepmeat as a result of the Australian drought and the earlier NZ production, then I think we'd have been in a better place to handle what happened."
- NZPA
