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Speaker 1: The Rural Report on hither do for see Allen Drive.

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Speaker 2: Jamie McKay from the country. Hello, how are you mate?

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Speaker 2: Oh I have to push a button. Hold on. I

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Speaker 2: thought you were on WhatsApp. No, of course not, you're

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Speaker 2: on a phone. Hello Jamie.

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Speaker 1: Hello Andrew, Take two.

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Speaker 2: Take two? How was the Emerson's golf opened at the

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Speaker 2: Ottago Golf Club last week?

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Speaker 1: It was wonderful, thank you. Wonderful but a controversy with

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Speaker 1: the winning team, but other than that a great day.

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Speaker 2: Did you win again?

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Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no golf and I will golf

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Speaker 1: and winning and the South are kind of mutually exclusive. Andrew.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, well good, well, look, come and play golf

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Speaker 2: in the other island from time to time and then

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Speaker 2: you'll find out. Now, the big story is Fonterra ten

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Speaker 2: dollar milk price despite a thirty percent drop in profit,

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Speaker 2: but the farm gate's good.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Look, and I heard most of your interview or

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Speaker 1: you chat with Andrew Murray the CFO or the new CFO. Look,

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Speaker 1: I'm no surprise that the profits down away that when

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Speaker 1: the milk price goes up, the ingredients are more expensive.

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Speaker 1: But look, this is a cooperative. It's owned by the farmers.

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Speaker 1: The most important number by the length of the straight

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Speaker 1: is the milk price. Ten dollars. It's a new record.

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Speaker 1: I've never been in double digits before Eclipse is the

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Speaker 1: previous record of nine dollars thirty in the twenty one

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Speaker 1: twenty two season. But to be honest, and before everyone

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Speaker 1: thinks the dairy farmers are going to get rich and

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Speaker 1: that's fleece them or do whatever, in real terms, probably

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Speaker 1: the best payout and it was, would be twenty thirteen

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Speaker 1: fourteen eight dollars forty. That's a decade ago. Since then

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Speaker 1: we've had horrendous on farm inflation. So ten dollars, make

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Speaker 1: no mistake about it. There's a great number. And if

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Speaker 1: you're not making money at ten dollars, Andrew, you shouldn't

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Speaker 1: be milking cow.

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Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, exactly. And I have to say I've been

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Speaker 2: getting a bit depressed about things because of the price.

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Speaker 2: It was tracking down, and then you heard that the

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Speaker 2: Chinese economy was tracking down. I thought none of us

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Speaker 2: is good. But as it turns out, they didn't actually

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Speaker 2: maintain their domestic production and so we had to step

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Speaker 2: in to help them out. So that is good, and

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Speaker 2: so everything is good in the end. That's a good thing, now, yeah, absolutely.

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Speaker 2: Now what's a bad thing is we've had fewer lambs

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Speaker 2: this spring. How come?

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Speaker 1: Oh gee, well, where do I start trees? Pine trees

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Speaker 1: in the weather might be one reason. So Beef and

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Speaker 1: Lamb New Zealand have just put out their estimates and

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Speaker 1: this is a forecast only at this stage for the

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Speaker 1: lambing of twenty twenty four and they're saying we were

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Speaker 1: expecting a decrease in the number of lambs tailed or docks,

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Speaker 1: depending on which island you're in, by one point one

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Speaker 1: million head or or five point two percent, which is

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Speaker 1: a substantial drop really, bringing the total lamb crop to

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Speaker 1: an estimated nineteen point two million. Now, you've got to

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Speaker 1: remember Andrew in the early nineteen eighties when Muldoon was

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Speaker 1: running rife with us with his subsidies, and that we

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Speaker 1: had seventeen million sheep in this country. Nowadays we only

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Speaker 1: have about twenty three to twenty four million. Our lamb

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Speaker 1: crop is nineteen point two million. A number of lambs

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Speaker 1: available for export is even worse. It's down six point

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Speaker 1: five percent for the whole season. But the good news

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Speaker 1: is supply and demand. Less lambs, more demand effectively. Early

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Speaker 1: season farm gate prices for sheep meat have been quite

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Speaker 1: a bit higher than last year. They're sitting on about

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Speaker 1: eight bucks at the moment, which is good, could be better.

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Speaker 1: They really need ten dollars, and of course cattle prices

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Speaker 1: remain strong there record as well. So look all in all,

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Speaker 1: Andrew farmers heading into Christmas apart from the weather, and

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Speaker 1: you can't do anything about that would have to be

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Speaker 1: reasonably happy.

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Speaker 2: Good stuff. Joey McKay for the Country, The Country dot

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Speaker 2: co dot MZ.

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