Peter Duggan, Strategic Information Services, Bord Bia

The latest forecasts from Meat and Wool New Zealand suggest that the 2009/10 lamb crop will be 6% higher due to higher lambing percentages and increased hogget lambing, despite the overall ewe flock showing a drop of 3% to leave it at its lowest level for over 50 years.

The lamb crop is expected to increase by 6% to 28.9 million head in the 2009/10 marketing season, with the majority of the increase occurring on the North Island. Better weather conditions and an increase in conception rates for ewes have led to significantly higher lambing percentages across New Zealand, especially in the Northern region, where lambing percentages have increased by 13 percentage points.

The lamb crop has also benefited from a higher number of hogget’s being retained for breeding. The number of lambs from hoggets is expected to increase by 41% to 973,000 head.

In line with the recovery in the lamb crop, the number of lambs for export is expected to rise by over 4% to 23.5 million head. A slight reduction in average carcase weights to 17.5 kilograms is forecast to result in lamb exports rising by around 4%.

The EU remains the key market for New Zealand accounting for half of total shipments for the first nine months of this year at 148,000 tonnes. In terms of EU quota utilisation, New Zealand lamb exports up to the 16th of November are down 4% on last year at 91% of the quota used. However shipments of chilled lamb to Europe were ahead by 3% to 40,300 tonnes for the first nine months this year. New Zealand is expected to fill its quota of 228,000 tonnes in 2010.