With the summer dry arriving earlier than usual, the sweeping land-use changes to dairying and cropping may create an unexpected problem for sheep farmers.
PGG Wrightson Otago livestock manager Andrew Kelleher said the central South Island from Central Otago to Marlborough was drying quickly and if it worsened, he wondered where store lambs would go given large areas of traditional finishing country were now running dairy cows or growing crops.
He spoke to about 40 people at the Meat and Wool New Zealand monitor farm field day at Middlemarch recently.
"I was in Middlemarch a week ago and seeing it again today, it has changed," he said.
The South Island store lamb market was starting to show signs of weakness, especially for light lambs, 24kg to 25kg liveweight. The price for store lambs 28kg liveweight and heavier was still holding at around $2 a kg.
Mr Kelleher said the loss of finishing land to take those store lambs could become an issue if the dry spell continued. He said some farmers may want to look at opportunities the store lamb market may now offer.
"There is money to be made out of it if you want to change. We certainly need more fatteners."
Mr Kelleher said with new pasture species and meat companies moving towards contracted supply, he said farmers may want to look at how they operated to take advantage of opportunities they had previously rejected.
He saw contracted supply as a positive move and the way the meat industry was headed in comparison with the previous spot market system, which he described as negative.
There would be fewer breeding ewes on the market this year with few farms being converted to dairying compared with previous years.
Many ewes and ewe lambs were killed last year and Mr Kelleher believed one-year ewes for breeding could be worth $60 to $75 this year.
The dry weather and falling beef schedule was also being felt on the beef market, with yearling steers that were making $2.60 a kg selling for $2 a kg at Balclutha last month.