Genetically Modified Food - who do you believe?

I watched a program recently about this and thought it would be an appropriate and relevant to offer some view on Genetically Modified Organisms (“GMO”) or Genetically Modified Food (“GMF”) as it’s commonly referred to.

As someone who likes to be well informed before expressing my opinion, I spent a number of hours researching including trolling the internet and trying to seek out someone who could shed some light on the topic.  All that effort was in vain as I still do not have a definitive view on the topic, primarily because it would seem that everything written has a predetermined agenda, in other words it’s phenomenally biased.   Moreover it seems nigh on impossible to find some person who can give you an independent view on it.

It was just like the program this last Sunday,  in my opinion the organic apple grower in the Hawkes bay was more concerned about protecting his organic export sales, than discussing the pros and cons of GMF.   His rationale was that the possibility of cross pollination from GMO crops to non GMO would mean he couldn’t market himself as GMO free or indeed organic.

The argument wasn’t about what the actual risk of this happening was or how this could be safeguarded against.  Moreover the grower thought that the government should not be able to override the Hawkes Bay district council labelling itself as a GM free zone, which was essential to the marketing of their apples.   An argument which was pretty farcical given that there is no difference between Hawkes Bay and other apple growing regions in New Zealand (in terms GMO crops at least) and if one day we had GMO crops in other regions, then the risk of cross pollination could of course easily come from another district outside of the Hawkes Bay, which makes a Hawkes Bay declaration as GME free bloody stupid (Yes it’s a decision to be determined on a National basis). Note as far as I am aware we don’t have any GMO crops in this country at all to date.  Although I would be surprised if we are not eating some food already that has some GMO food ingredients in it from overseas.

The apple grower’s other principal argument against GMO food was to say “go around the world and ask consumers what they want?”  Yes people with a good discretionary income (not poor or impoverished people) responded that they would rather buy organic food (which is not necessarily  the same as non GMO food).   From my reading it appears most consumers apparently “buy organic food because they believe they are avoiding all pesticides”.  However one thing I did learn from my reading of various biased articles was the misnomer that organic farming means no use of pesticides.   Apparently a lot of pesticides are used (and often more regularly than conventional pesticides) so long as such pesticides are derived from “natural sources”, it’s okay.  Moreover there is some debate about the risk to human health and the environment with many of these pesticides organic farmers use.   The apples on the program I watched the other night looked amazing not like the ones grown in my backyard, that do grow naturally free of any attention from me whatsoever.  My point being that to justify your argument by saying this is what consumers want is pretty weak, when realistically these same consumers base their opinions on a marketing story that almost certainly doesn’t disclose all the relevant facts.

Unfortunately I am not in a position to advance the debate on what we should do in regards to GMO crops.  However I can recommend that if you want a short article that addresses the pro and cons of the debate, then google an article “Genetically Modified Food Pros and Cons List” written by a Crystal Lombardo. It’s a good starting point.   From this I agree wholeheartedly with the following quote:  “If used properly, the science behind genetically modified food could be used to end hunger. If used improperly, the science could be misused and potentially endanger (sic) our entire food supply. This means that if we are to pursue this field of food science, we must have responsible management of the research being done and have third party independent verification and monitoring of results so that it becomes possible to distinguish fact from fiction.”

As such I conclude is this is definitely a decision to be determined by Government having regard to the above quote, not on adhoc basis by various regional or district Councils.

More Rhetoric regarding the Wool and Meat Industry in New Zealand.

I am a passionate stud sheep breeder who obviously wants there to be a strong future for sheep farming in New Zealand, but what is the future, I don’t know?

I do know that I am sick to death of listening to commentaries on the topic which are just generalised generic crap, with no detail as to how we achieve these grandiose statements they make.

A perfect example of this recently was Damien O’Connor, the agricultural spokesperson for Labour, waffling in an interview with Jamie McKay on the Country along the lines: wool is a great sustainable product with health benefits, fire resistant blah blah, they need to get out there and market the product, too long nothing has been done by the government, by processors, by blah blah.  I don’t recall exactly what he said but it was along these lines: he uttered similar rhetoric regarding the meat industry.

I know from my own experience and involvement over the years that a lot of people and entities have endeavoured to get the message out about wool, they have tried to market a clean green traceable story behind it, they have emphasised the positive attributes of wool, but has any traction been made, given the price of wool currently you would probably say no.   Should more be done? Sure, but what do we do?   

I did a quick search on the internet:  wool versus synthetic carpet,  some key differences:  Price, synthetic carpets generally much cheaper: synthetic carpets generally much more fade resistance (solution dyed nylon carpets carry warranties for this) an issue if have large windows or doors where carpet is exposed to sun; wool better insulator, warmer in winter and cooler in summer and good for those with asthma; wool generally more resilient, but will wear more in heavy traffic areas compared to some synthetic carpets.  Wool is a natural sustainable renewable product.  There is a lot more on the internet for consumers to digest before determining what carpet to buy. 

 

However like most things today I would imagine the biggest obstacle for wool carpets is Price!  Clearly anything made of wool is a niche product that needs to be aimed at the wealthy consumer, a generic statement made by me!  However I really don’t know how we gain more traction in this market.

Citing Icebreaker as an example is pretty tiresome, given this is a fine wool clothing product produced by a private company that focuses on a very small niche market, in theory it should be easy to replicate, but I suspect the bigger the niche market you are trying to target the harder it is! Moreover clothing is a product that appeals to people’s vanity and in terms of the price to carpet a home, is a very small sum to pay and such I would presume it’s much easier to market an expensive sweatshirt to a person than a wool carpet.

Others waffle on about how we need to bring back a Wool board and a Meat board:  to do what?  If they were so fantastic the first time around why is the sheep industry in the present predicament it is today.  If these boards are the answer, could the advocates please state why they will make a difference, give specifics of how and what they will and can do, including the amount of funding that may be required to achieve what they are suggesting, not simply we need to bring back the Wool Board to market generically around the world.

I think many people forget that while we as New Zealanders consider ourselves big players in the market, we are not, we are just a drop in the ocean and as such to create the sort of brand recognition that the “Wool board would do” is so far beyond the resources we have its ludicrous.

I applaud those who publicly air their opinion, as arguably without it, nothing would ever change or improve.  However those who simply regurgitate what has been said for the last 20 years, without providing specifics or detail as to how we achieve these stock standard generic statements, I, for one, would rather not have to read or listen to any more of their dribble!!!

Stop killing ram lambs: Utter Rubbish or Not?

In response to an article I wrote a month or so ago regarding the eating quality of our lamb,  it was suggested that if we stopped killing and processing ram lambs, then this would go a long way to sorting this issue.

The same person did acknowledge that the Meat companies have carried out taste tests to satisfy themselves to the contrary (but she “questions those results”).   I understand that a few years ago Alliance undertook significant research in this regard and found there was no difference.

Where do I stand on this?  As a pragmatic farmer applying a common sense approach view to this question, for me it simply comes  down to the age and maturity of the animal in question. 

My lambs are born from I September onwards.   I generally aim to kill my lambs at a live weight of 44 kgs or above; in the hope of averaging between a 19 and 20 kg carcass weight.   As I am all studs, I don’t kill lambs off mum; the majority of all lambs have to be weighed at weaning and again at least 6 weeks later to obtain meaningful genetic growth figures for selling rams.  The last of my works lambs are killed by early to Mid-April, of which the large majority of these are ewe lambs.

Do I think there is an issue with the taste of the ram lambs that I kill during this period?   The answer is quite simply NO!  The lambs are young and being killed at, for the want of a better term, what I would call an immature weight.      The combination of these two factors I would think ensures there is no difference in taste.  Take a ram lamb say born 1 September, which is killed in early April as it has only just reached 44kg live weight, which incidentally is firstly a bloody cull, and secondly inevitably a multiple and most importantly still immature, so will there be an issue as to taste:  I somewhat doubt it.  This assumes the lamb is in good condition, i.e. prime, for which the works should pay a premium (and do not) as that must affect the eating quality and taste of the lamb.

But if you take a ram lamb that is 50kg or more live weight over that same period, then the sex of this lamb may affect taste, as it’s obviously a very mature lamb.   I do sell a few through Temuka that are 50 kg or more, because being a stud breeder I can’t cull my lambs till early February (for the reason outlined above: growth figures).  But generally no lamb is going to reach such a live weight before being killed.

Similarly a skinny ram lamb (i.e. not prime, for whatever reason that achieves the target live weight of 44kg and is killed, there could be an issue as to taste but primarily because its skinny not because it’s a ram lamb, as its very unlikely that such a lamb has attained any form of maturity.

Accordingly the works present payment regime: that pays you even more abysmally for heavy lambs and that the lambs are still young i.e. killed by Mid-April ensures the sex of the lamb has very little if not no bearing at all on the taste.   As my circumstances are similar to how most lambs are killed in New Zealand, I believe this holds true for practically all lambs killed.

I actually would love to see technology that enables us to ensure that all lambs destined for the works, are born as ram lambs, for the simple reason they are ready to be killed weeks ahead of ewe lambs (this would be waste of time for me as a stud breeder, but be big benefit for a lot of commercial farmers).

The cynic in me does however wonder about those ram lambs killed through the winter season, which are considerably older and likely much more mature; as I can assure you I wouldn’t be eating them! 

Paid success no basis for gong!

Twice a year the government makes various people knights or dames of the realm!!! I don’t consider myself a republican or a royalist.  I would also assume that I, like most people, are unaware exactly what the criteria is upon which they decide to bestow such titles on people.

However, irrespective of what the criteria are, twice a year, I find myself absolutely stunned as to who receives such titles.  If someone simply pursues their goals or career and they get well or adequately remunerated for it: why do they deserve to be made a knight or a dame simply because they have been successful in their chosen field    It’s farcical!  

Surely to be worthy of receiving such a title you must do more than simply pursue your career or your vocation and be successful at it.   You need to use your position, success and/or status in society to help many others over your lifetime to be even considered worthy of being made a Knight or a Dame.  Logically this would mean most people would normally receive such an honour in their twilight of their life as it takes success, benevolence and hard work over a lifetime to truly make a difference in society.  It goes without saying that someone’s contribution in this regard is not their vocation or employment for which they are getting paid.

I don’t know much about the basis for receiving a CNZM or ONZM either.  But I think I heard Phil Goff being quoted after receiving one of these that he was simply doing his job.  Which succinctly sums up my view that if you are doing your job well, do you deserve this as surely even in a small country in New Zealand, we have millions of people who do their job well?

I have a lot of admiration for what Val Adams has achieved in the field of athletics, but being extremely successful in the world as a shot putter, for which she is remunerated in some form or another means she should be made a Dame?  No way!   Perhaps twenty years down the track when through her success and status she gives so much back to society via unpaid appearances, speaking engagements or endorsements etc, then she may deserve to be made a Dame.

Sir Graham Henry is another.   For most of his career as a rugby coach, he has been extremely well paid for pursuing his vocation and ultimately his career.  Again I admire what he has achieved and done, but did he deserve to be made a knight, again based on my criteria, no way.

A coupler people who in my eyes do deserve it: Sir Colin Meads; sure he was a legendary All Black, but it is what he done over the subsequent decades in giving his time, endorsement etc to many worthy causes.  What he put back into rugby.  It is his lifetime of what he gave back, not as part of his job, which means he deserved to be knighted.   

Similarly Sir Peter Leitch, aka the Mad Butcher.   A very successful businessman, a man who deserved to be knighted, not for his success as a businessman, but for what he has done (and still does) for so many entities, charitable, sporting and otherwise.  He has used his success to help so many others.  The man seems to be a dynamo; he is always using his notoriety and resources to help some cause.

Sporting stars can have the abilities recognised through Halbergs, or Halls of Fame etc if we are simply looking for a way to acknowledge how good someone is in their chosen field of endeavour.   Surely such success alone cannot merit being made a Dame or a Knight.

Great Tasting Lamb

I am writing around this topic again because I read another article on taste research, presumably this one was put out by Headwaters, given it appears in both the NZ farmer and Farmers Weekly.

Headwaters are essentially an entity that breeds composite sheep (a cross between Romney, Texel, Finn and Perendale breeds as stated in the article).  As I understand it their rams are sold to shareholder farmers of the entity.   I am unaware whether this breed is now what is considered stabilised or not, by this I mean whether they still introduce outside purebreds eg a Romney ram: if not its stabilised and no additional hybrid vigour is being introduced.

I read the article and again it repeats the importance of polyunsaturated intramuscular fat and omega-3 fatty acids being key factors in succulent tasty lamb.   I certainly not saying this is not correct, but I do think you will find that if they have 30000 lambs meeting such criteria, then there will be millions of other lambs around the country that would also fulfill such criteria.  If what they are doing is indeed the benchmark, why isn’t Alliance rolling this out for all its suppliers, given the suggestion there may be a premium for good tasting lamb one day: wow what a radicle idea that is!!  A day all of us are looking forward to.

There are many things that go into taste: I understand for example that Alliance acknowledges that if the meat yield gets too high, then the eating quality of such a lamb seriously diminishes.  Similarly others would argue that very fast growing lambs are also not that tasty as such animals lack a covering of fat (which does seem at odds with whats written in the headwaters article, love to see the data on this).  Generally, as with most things there is balance to be struck between meat yield and growth, it’s a rarity to find an animal high on both.

I have stated this before:  historically if you asked someone considered a stockmen and one who likes to eat decent lamb or mutton, then almost every time the answer will be the best eating lamb is either a Southdown or merino cross lamb.    The explanation being that both of these breeds have very fine wool and as such that translates into fine textured meat that is succulent and very tasty.  When is a company like Alliance actually going to fund some research to verify whether this is true or not.    If indeed if it is true: then we already have established breeds that will provide the consumer with very enjoyable lamb eating experience.  I almost always only ever eat Southdown cross mutton or lamb and I have never ever had a visitor not blown away by how nice it was.  It would be good to know if this could be done on a national basis.

The comments in this headwaters article regarding fat, namely the focus on moving away from lean meat and have some fat cover on your ewe flock, is certainly not something unique to Headwaters.   Most breeders worth their salt today are focusing on this, indeed even SIL (Sheep Improvement Limited) have acknowledged that rewarding animals with no fat with high ebvs is not right and results in a sheep that you don’t want.    There are many breeders who have endeavoured to keep a balance between growth and doing ability (yes fat).  Condition scoring your ewes regularly and culling those hard doing ewes is one way that every farmer in the country can easily improve this aspect of our sheep.

I do think that one of the quickest way to improve the taste of lamb, apart from all the research that many groups and breeders are doing (not just Headwaters), would be for Meat companies to quite simply pay a premium for those lambs that are ready to kill, i.e. they are thriving and in good order, (they have some fat cover) as opposed to so many lambs that are killed on weight alone, but are hard and extremely lean, who wants to eat that!!

Buying rams, who from and which ones?

For those who don’t know me, I am a ram breeder; breeding Romneys, Southdowns, South suffolks and Lincolns.

I recently visited a number of studs with a view to buying a good outside sire and quite frankly: while I saw the odd good line up, I have seen a more bloody awful lines of rams that are just not sound sheep which should not be sold: this is not a judgement on type, this about what I consider basic fundamentals such as pasterns, legs, colour etc.

The following is a prioritised order of what to consider when deciding who to buy from firstly and then actually buying the rams:

1.     Do you trust the breeder?  This is the most important, because in this day and age, there is so much marketing that sounds good, but in reality doesn’t add value or isn’t reflective of what they are doing, it’s just marketing crap.  DNA parentage for example is so expensive and realistically adds little value to the rams you buy, it’s more often than not a marketing gimmick.   How do you determine if trust the breeder: you read as much as you can about them, ask them a lot of questions, and any response that sounds like crap, you don’t go there; and

2.     Once you have established trust, you need to satisfy yourself that this breeder is focusing on the core things you are looking for.  If its fertility or survival for example, this must be part of what they focus on.  Obviously the breeder may be doing a lot of things, but if you are looking for some key traits, then this must be at least part of their breeding programme; and

3.    Then you need to see the breeders flock: satisfy yourself that the type of sheep they are breeding are what you want.  If you are unsure of this, which is quite likely, then don’t buy all your rams off them in the first instance, buy a few and see how they go (not one ram as that’s not a big enough sample size); and

4.     Then when selecting your rams, don’t worry about the figures in the first instance.  If your breeder is doing his job properly, there should be no real poor figured sheep being offered for sale.   You initially select on type and basic fundamentals (this includes pasterns, how they walk, shoulders, colour, teeth, eyes etc.).   These basic fundamentals may be difficult to find; but hopefully you will have selected a breeder that does focus on this.  Don’t be sucked in to believing that these basics are not important, there are breeders who will tell you it’s all about figures and performance!  In the short term you might get away with such an approach, particularly if you do have a good flock of ewes, but in the long term 5 to 10 years plus you will go backwards dramatically if you don’t maintain the basics.

5.     If you want say 5 rams, then once you have selected on type, hopefully 10 to 15 rams you like the look of: then get stuck into the figures.   Firstly kick out anything that is poor on the core traits that are important to you.    Then after that don’t over analyse things too much, as there are many traits which makes it difficult to trade one off against the other.  If you still have more rams than you want, then with SIL, focus on the overall DPO, i.e. take the highest ones left.  When looking at the figures ask the breeder to explain them if you don’t know, as some SIl Figures are a complete waste of time and can be wrong.  If the breeder doesn’t seem to understand them (there are some), then perhaps you shouldn’t be buying rams there.

One last point, as I have seen a lot of rams recently that are quite simply unsound rams that should not be sold, but nevertheless there are hundreds of these rams being sold.  This leads me to believe there are number of farmers who either are being convinced to buy on figures alone or don’t have the ability to buy sound rams.  If this is you, then ask around for someone who does know and take them with you to help select the rams.  It is certainly not something to be embarrassed about as it’s no different to getting an agronomist to give you advice on grasses pastures etc., or a lawyer for legal advice.  In my view one of the keys to being successful is knowing when you don’t know and therefore seeking the appropriate advice.

It’s not enough for a Cooperative to simply market itself as one to get your business!

In theory I am a strong advocate of cooperatives as quite simply the producers are the shareholders of the entity and as such you would expect everything to be done in the best interest of the shareholder.  However in reality I am far from convinced this is the case.

My concerns in this regard have again been highlighted by the official signing of the Silver Fern Farms (“SFF”) Joint Venture arrangement with a Chinese company.    Alliance Meats (“Alliance”), who I am a shareholder and supplier of, have reiterated in their meetings, articles, weekly emails etc that “we are the only cooperative left and as such the only one that truly has the farmers’ interest at heart”.  I am paraphrasing here, but this has been a familiar marketing theme for over 12 months now.

The problem is this in itself is not a good enough reason to supply a cooperative.  It would be if the theory holds true above, but I am not sure that it is, a cooperative ALSO has to be good successful business that commands support and loyalty of its shareholders through its business acumen, returns, integrity, transparency etc

In a recent article Murray Taggert (Chairman of Alliance) apparently said “Grand Farms wanted to process more imported meat and was pushing more to an ‘up market’ level”.   Grand Farm being the processing giant in China that Alliance is looking to strengthen their existing relationship with (their words not mine).  I am sorry but isn’t this the very thing that we don’t want (it was certainly one of my concerns with the SFF joint venture): that we remain a supplier of whole carcases of lamb/mutton.    How does such an arrangement whereby a company in china processes the meat, into presumably the cuts the consumer wants (‘up market level’), extract more money for me the shareholder/supplier of Alliance.   The added value is surely going directly to the Chinese company Grand Farms!   I would have thought such an arrangement was the antithesis of what most, if not all, meat industry commentators suggest should happen if we are to extract more added value through the chain of supply, so the farmer, in this case Alliance shareholders, received higher returns at the gate.

Then on top of this Alliance has now entered into a joint venture with the New Zealand Merino Company   (“NZM”) to process and market merino meat under the Silere brand.   In my humble opinion, this was originally simply a contract entered into by SFF with the primary purpose to procure livestock.  I understand a premium was paid, which no doubt was ultimately cross subsidised by other suppliers to SFF at the time. 

I thought SFF may have actually stumbled into a good thing here, as historically most would accept that merino (or merino cross)  and Southdown (or Southdown cross) lamb is the best tasting meat (incidentally this to do with the fineness of the wool translating into fine textured meat, something that any experienced stockman will tell you, but I have yet to see any meat company do trials on).  However I was reliably informed by an Alliance executive, in a general discussion some months back, that there were major issues with Silere brand because the colour of the meat made the marketing of it very difficult.

Logically if it was a great money spinner, why would SFF give it up?  The cynic in me wonders if the premiums that I understand were paid by SFF for Silere meat, which they now have no legal obligation to pay, and more importantly no longer wish to pay because there is no money in it, is why SFF’s partnership with NZM is now at an end.

Accordingly if any of these things (if not all) of the above are correct, why have Alliance entered into partnership with NZM to process and market this Silere brand.  Moreover if Alliance pays a premium, because again it’s back to the same old chestnut of procuring stock, then I for one will be bloody annoyed at subsidising a brand and product which presumably has not been a success to date.

I will continue to supply Alliance, but I have to say that my loyalty is being seriously tested and realistically it’s not far from being broken.