Taumarunui was the subject of a post yesterday. I lived there not long after Muldoon introduced his marginal seats retention programme. It was multi faceted. Rural education programmes – more later. Railway investment especially in Hamilton and Palmerston North. But most important to Taumarunui was the skinny sheep development policy.
It involved a government grant to cut scrub from hills especially facing south which weren’t worth clearing otherwise. I did a bit over some holidays. Using a slasher hardened me up. Lots of slips on those slopes a few years later and when I went through more recently the sensible cockie had let it revert to manuka. (sometime I must do a post on how planting manuka can contribute to world health, flood protection and preventing global warming all at once).
Muldoon who was the government at the time – both Prime Minister and Minister of Finance decided that we needed more sheep. So he paid a subsidy to farmers to increase numbers. And increase numbers they did. Well they claimed the did. And I’m sure they did – but in most cases not in the same numbers as they claimed for. And maybe breeding rates did jump enormously and co-incidentally for a few years and then drop away again.
But more sheep on not much more land meant that they were pretty skinny – there was a bigger focus on wool than meat for a while and I’m sure that didn’t help the farmers in the longer run.
Anyway good lesson for a young chap about laws of unintended consequences.
A good kiwi bloke
I thought the meat was always worth more than the wool?
In the south UK butchers’ lowest prices on a butchered lamb were £15 apppx about 10 years back. I doubt the wool from a sheep, even prepared to weave/knit has ever reached half that?
Just joining in, to ribaldry no doubt . . .