Wairarapa: Lamb prices peak

Brian Diamond, from Elders Livestock, said lambs were selling for the highest prices he had ever seen, with some ewes selling at $140-145 a head.
"It's been pretty settled over the last few weeks, but it has definitely been high - I've never seen it this high. So we're in a bit of unchartered territory here."
He said lamb was selling for about $8 a kilo.
"When you get a 20kg lamb, that's pretty good. There's some pretty big money floating around out there at the moment."
Federated Farmers Wairarapa president Paul McGill said he paid about $3.80 a kilo for lambs, and the carcass price fetched $7.60 a kilo from the freezing works.
"It's a huge price increase compared to three seasons ago, and the price will hit $8 a kilo once the supply gets lower."
He said the dramatic increase was due to increased demand and reduced supply, as there had been a shortage of lambs in New Zealand and around the world for the last four years.
"There's been a lot of drought and changes in land use which has meant we have less lambs and it's been slowly trending down, and it's come to a head as demand is increasing."
Consumer demand is also changing, as people reach for the cheaper cuts of meat and mutton, the price of which is also surging upwards.
"It's not only lamb that's going up - people who want to get the same sort of protein that lamb offers are going for mutton because it's cheaper, but because the demand for it is increasing, that's also going up in price."
Although farmers are reaping the benefits from the increased prices, the surge comes at the tail end of the season, when most farmers have already sold most of their stock.
"Everyone is down to their winter numbers now, so not every farmer will be getting this price because there's not very many lambs left."
Mr McGill said he expected the high prices to stay as they are for the rest of the year.
"The one risk we have is with Christmas and Easter. We don't want prices getting too crazy so that people stop buying lamb altogether. So if prices stay like this for awhile, that's good.
"It looks promising and I don't think it will go back to where it was for a while. We've had four really tough years, so this has been a long time coming."