Live sheep exports a risk

The last live sheep shipment at the Port of Napier, 12 years ago.

Common sense seems unlikely to succumb to the almighty dollar as New Zealand again, albeit fleetingly, ponders the issue of bulk live sheep exports to the Middle East.

As Prime Minister John Key wrapped-up his historic meetings in Saudi Arabia, farming leaders agreed that while the returns from live sheep shipment are better and offer a competitive option for farmers, resumption of the live sheep trade on the scale it existed in the 1980s, 1990s and up to 2003 is too much of a risk to the wider meat export economy.

Hawke's Bay farmer and Federated Farmers immediate-past national president Bruce Wills says he "watched with interest" the reports of Mr Key's negotiations over the settling of a free-trade agreement, which stalled more than six years ago after a failure to get the shipments going again.

"If it were to resume, I'm not sure what percentage of the sheep meat export it would grow to. From what I hear, it might be less than 5 per cent. Would you put a really good economy at risk?" he said.

"There's a balance between risk and return, and when you see something like 4000 sheep suffocating around the equator ... it's not a good look."

Part of the balance is, however, that the New Zealand meat market with Saudi Arabia is worth about $120 million, the fifth largest.

There have been some notable disasters, with 4179 sheep reported to have died of suffocation on the Bader III en route from the West Australian port of Fremantle to Qatar in January last year.

Even greater numbers perished in August 2003 as the Cormo Express found itself almost port-less en route from Fremantle to Saudi Arabia.

The losses were much greater than accepted mortality rates, which had been under 3 per cent, and in many cases under the legal requirement of 2 per cent. The 2003 incident led to a Labour Government ban on the shipments to the Middle East.

It was just a few months earlier that the last bulk live sheep shipment took place from Napier, with 40,000 gathered from around the central North Island and shipped to Saudi Arabia aboard the Corriedale Express.

This was after drought in Australia meant farmers there were unable to meet the demand.

Hawke's Bay company Awassi NZ Ltd, formed in 1995 and which had averaged as little as 0.02 per cent mortality, later prepared at least one shipment at a feedlot near Tikokino, in 2007. But this did not go ahead and the sheep were taken to abattoirs in New Zealand.

Napier Port commercial manager Andrew Locke says the port could be set up to handle the live sheep trade if it ever eventuated again. "The trade is somewhat dormant," he said, agreeing much is in the hands of the Ministry of Primary Industries.

Cattle continue to be exported live from the port, with the number of shipments expected to be similar this year, to the nine last year and 10 in 2013.

New Zealand is, however, in an agreement to support sheep exports for a breeding project in Saudi Arabia.