Photo: Beef and Lamb NZ
The gap between people and sheep in New Zealand is rapidly closing.
There's now about 4.5 sheep to every person in New Zealand compared to a peak of 22 sheep per person in the 1980s, that's according to figures released by Stats NZ this week.
Agricultural statistics spokesperson Tehseen Islam said as of June last year, there was a total of 23.6 million sheep in New Zealand, a six million, or 21 percent, drop compared to 10 years ago.
"While that's a big drop from the early 80s, I still suspect that's pretty high in terms of world-wide," Islam said.
Islam said farmers were always making decisions about the "most profitable use" of their land, which was likely a key driver behind the decline in sheep numbers.
The data shows deer numbers had the biggest fall of all livestock, dropping about 26 percent to a total of about 709,000 deer.
Dairy cattle also fell by about 13 percent or 860,000 cattle over the 10 year period, with national herd now of 5.8 million.
Photo: RNZ / Nate McKinnon
Bucking the trend of falling livestock, however, were beef cattle, holding steady at about 3.7 million.
It comes as the country's grassland area dropped about 10 percent over the same time.
"This drop in grassland coincides with large decreases in livestock being farmed on that land," Islam said.
Beef and Lamb New Zealand chief executive Alan Thomson said the rise in pine forests is driving the decline in sheep.
"Key to that is the recent land use change driven by afforestation. So we've seen whole sheep and beef farms converted into forestry for carbon credits," Thomson said.
Poor returns on wool was also a contributing factor, though there were some "greenshoots" starting to show.
Global beef demand reaching a 30 year high was also a factor, especially as supply from the United States was "at an all time low".
"The price has gone ahead of sheep so there's been a modest conversion of sheep to cattle because of that market signal but by far the biggest issue is these farms being converted into carbon forestry."
Thomson said sheep and beef farming was "vital".
"In terms of rural economies, rural communities thriving it's absolutely critical we maintain a thriving sheep sector.
He said there had been a "substantial lift" in sheep meat price in recent months, and recent Government policies relating to wool and farm to forest conversions were helping provide great certainty for the industry.
Photo: Zespri
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