Beef and Lamb New Zealand is predicting this year will be the worst for lamb slaughter in half a century.

The company’s economic service released its latest provisional half year lamb slaughter figures on Monday, predicting a slaughter of just 19.3 million lambs in the present season.

If that figure eventuates, it would represent a fall of nearly 8% on last season.

Rob Davison, from Beef and Lamb’s economic service, says a combination of last year’s appalling weather conditions and increasing dairy conversions are to blame for the low numbers.

“There’s been an underlying trend of a loss of land to dairy conversions, particularly in the South Island, where sheep and beef farms are converting over.

“In the Spring, which was very tough, fewer lambs were tailed due to the bad weather, but particularly in Southland, where losses were pretty high.”

It’s not all bad news, though, Rob Davison says global price pressures have seen the values of both lamb and mutton dramatically increase so far this year.

“Anecdotal evidence is that farmers are culling a bit deeper into their flocks, and the adult sheep that go into the mutton slaughter could be a bit higher than what we were expecting.

“We believe, if that’s the case they will retian more ewe lambs, and the lamb kill might not be as high as we were predicting.

“There’s no comparison going back in history of the mutton price being so high, relative to lamb.”

Some Southland meatworks are facing staff redundancies as the reduced numbers flow through to the processing industry.