Farmers ready for single entity in meat industry

Never before have so many sheep farmers been keen on the idea of merger within their industry.

The southern sheep farmer is not usually the type to make drastic changes but the recent low prices for lamb coupled with increasing land values has been the impetus he has needed to look for other options both inside and outside of his industry.

One of those options, of course, is merging up the main meat companies into a single entity.

At the Alliance Group meetings so far, farmers have been all but unanimous in their support for the concept giving the company their support and a mandate to further investigate the co-operative's concept of a single entity.

About 350 farmers turned out to hear the company detail their solution at Ascot Park Hotel on Monday morning.

Chairman Owen Poole presented an outline of the concept and while he said "we can't guarantee success we are not contemplating failure either."

He then handed over to CEO Grant Cuff who detailed the possible future structure of the new company and gave farmers an indication of the costs and capital, which could be required.