LAMB
The latest edition of Beef + Lamb New Zealand’s lamb crop report points to a 2.6 percent or 526,000-head lift in lambs tailed nationwide this spring, up to 20.9 million. This was driven by improved lambing percentages as the number of ewes mated this season was down 0.9 percent to 15.3 million-head. The largest change was in the North Island where the lamb crop is estimated to have jumped 4.7 percent or 468,000-head. An 11 percent lift in lambs through Northland-Waikato-Bay of Plenty was the main propellant, which bounced back after spring 2022’s crop was affected by drought conditions during mating.
Other regions reported a small increase in lamb numbers too, due to better scanning percentages and good lamb survivability. Trends were mixed in the South Island. The island’s lamb crop came in 59,000-head or 0.6 percent more than last year. That was exclusively driven by a 1.7 percent or 108,000-head lift out of Otago/Southland, again due to much better conditions at mating. Tallies in the Marlborough-Canterbury catchment were down 1.2 percent or 49,000-head due to fewer ewes being mated; blamed on forestry conversions and a further shift into cattle farming.
BEEF
Beef exports in November jumped to 44,000t, an easy 8000t clear of any other November going back to at least the mid-2000s. Export sales were quiet in the two months prior versus the amount of beef that was being produced, so this was partly due to meat companies playing catch-up on sales that would usually have been made earlier. Another factor is that the cattle kill — mainly steers and heifers — was smoking along through late-October and November, and therefore exports were likely to be strong either way.
Manufacturing beef sales into China and Japan were almost exactly in line with last year. That meant almost all the excess was picked up by the US which purchased 11,100t; the biggest volume for a November since 2015. They bought 65 percent of beef in this category. Other variations of frozen beef were mainly funnelled straight into China, which took 10,300t. This easily broke its previous record for November, though the 62 percent market share was typical for this month.
Other Asian markets were mainly quiet for this point in the year but any slack was picked up by the US and Canada at 2800t versus 760t last year.
GRAIN
The global outlook for wheat and grains globally is for higher supplies across 2023/24, according to the latest United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). The monthly World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates (WASDE) report noted that the global wheat outlook for 2023/24 is for higher supplies, consumption, and trade with reduced stocks.
This comes as supplies increased 0.1 percent (1.3 million tonnes) to 1,052.9 million tonnes, caused by higher production forecasting by Canadian and Australian governments — marginally offset by a reduction in Brazil. In terms of the coarse grain outlook for 2023/24 production-wise is for a 0.2 percent increase (2.7 million tonnes) to 1,502.0 million tonnes. The global coarse grain outlook is for larger production, increased trade, and higher ending stocks relative to last month.
