Meat board strips $6m from its spending

The meat industry board stripped of its farmer funding for industry good activities in the wool sector says it is slashing almost $6.3 million from its spending for the current year.

Meat and Wool New Zealand announced last week it was restructuring, with plans to axe about a third of its Wellington head office jobs in the wake of farmer rejection of an industry-good levy on wool.

The loss of wool sector funding has triggered a restructure of the organisation, with 23 jobs going and seven new ones being created, most of them outside the capital.

In a referendum in August, farmers voted to continue funding sheep meat and beef research and market related activities for another five years but baulked at contributing for research or promotion of wool or goat meat.

Meat and Wool lost more than $6m a year in income, and farmers lost access to another $5m of taxpayer funding for things such as wool research.

"The reality of the loss of $6.4m in wool levies has forced us to think carefully about what we do and how we deliver to farmers," board chairman Mike Petersen said.

Today he said the science, technology transfer and promotion projects being dumped include those directly funded by the wool levy: Merino Inc projects, merino management tools, the Biella Wool Scholarship, AgITO contribution to shearer training, and a wool classer registration programme, worth $500,000 in total.

A further $2.5m is removed from wool technical and enterprise activities, and all would cease when the current wool levy order expires in April 2010.

Research to stop includes measures against clover root weevil ($100,000), development of alternative methods of parasite control ($270,000), survival and performance of multiple lambs ($183,000), development of forage brassicas ($32,000), and facial eczema monitoring ($22,000).

The board's contribution to johne's disease research will fall by $250,000.

Mr Petersen said funding for the genetic records kept by Sheep Improvement Ltd would be cut by $155,000 and $96,000 would be stripped from californian thistle research, while monitor farms would be trimmed by $52,000.

Significant budget cuts had been made in market development activity, with $1m slashed from the Europe programme and $350,000 gone from support for sheepmeat and beef promotions in other markets.

Skills, education and leadership programmes were being reviewed or trimmed.

- NZPA