Chairman Mike Petersen said it had also listened to farmer's concerns about the state of the wool industry, and planned to invest about $5 million over two years in market development and to raise awareness of wool.
The grower organisation proposes addressing the levy shortfall from greater contributions from meat companies, funding from the Government's Primary Growth Partnership, dipping into its reserves and a smaller stepped increase in levies.
Mr Petersen yesterday said the organisation's annual budget had been trimmed from a proposed $39 million to $46 million a year, to between $36 million and $37 million.
"In fact, we have pruned the budget so that expenditure will be the same as this year, even though stock numbers are down and there will be less interest from the New Zealand Meat Board Reserves," Mr Petersen said.
The new proposal was in response to farmer feedback which revealed a willingness to invest in the sector but concern at the level of levy increase.
More than half of the 2000 farmers who participated in the consultation round expressed willingness for the board to be involved in market development of wool.
Mr Petersen said initially it was reluctant, having seen Elders and Wool Partners International launch commercial wool ventures, but had taken farmer concerns on board.
Compared to the original proposal, the new budget allocates $4 million less for research and development and $4 million less in market development for meat - which the board hopes would be picked up by meat companies.
Farmers have funded 80% of meat market development and Mr Petersen said he would like those costs to be evenly shared.
If companies failed to fill the void in the next two years, the board would not pick up any of the shortfall.
The board proposes using $26 million in reserves to attract matching funding from the Government's Primary Growth Partnership for new research and development, with the money invested in new initiatives for the sheep and beef sectors.
This was expected to leave a core reserve investment of about $60 million by 2014-15.
In the latest proposal, the sheepmeat levy, at present 40c a head, would increase 5c a head a year to a cap of 60c by 2014-15; beef, at present $3.60 a head, would rise 20c a head a year to a cap of $4.60; wool would fall from 5.25c a kg to 3c a kg and dags would also fall from 2c a kg to 1c a kg, while goat meat would remain at 55c a head.
