Lamb toll no worry, say exporters

By LIAM DANN and AGENCIES

Meat exporters remain optimistic that the bad spring weather taking its toll on southern lambs will not have a significant effect on profits.

It is estimated that $30 million may have been wiped from Otago and Southland farm incomes in one of the worst lambing seasons on record.

About 500,000 lambs - worth about $60 each - have already perished this spring after two cold fronts in a row hammered Southland and south Otago.

Southern meat companies PPCS and Alliance - both cautious not to downplay the impact on farmers and rural communities - said losses still needed to be looked at in the context of the wider region.

PPCS spokeswoman Brigid Feely said the company estimated overall losses would ultimately average out at about 2 per cent of the total South Island lamb population.

So while the losses could be devastating, the season had been shaping up as a good one, with more sheep giving birth to triplets and twins this year.

Unfortunately with twins and triplets often being smaller lambs, that would have cut their chances of surviving the snow and storms.

Owen Poole, chief executive of Southland based Alliance Group, said it was still too early to gauge the full extent of the damage.

He said everything had been looking good before the bad weather.

Lambing in large parts of Southland was well under way and the plight for some farmers was serious. But balancing that, lambing in the hill country was only just getting started, he said.

"So while the weather will have had some effect on grass growth there, it won't have affected lambing too much at this point," Poole said.