Case of the Disappearing Stock

“One would never think that sheep could be an endangered animal, at least not in New Zealand,” Global E & C Solutions Marketing’s senior director Manju Bansal writes for Forbes. “Over the last few decades, however, the economics of cattle ranching have trumped those of sheep farming. According to Statistics New Zealand, the population of dairy cattle has increased over 110 per cent in the last 30 years, while that of sheep has dropped by a whopping 55 per cent, from 70 million to about 31 million in 2010. In 2003 the industry signed the landmark Dairying and Clean Streams Accord. Progress is being tracked assiduously a decade after its signing, make[ing] it a model that could be emulated by a lot of other countries struggling to deal with balanced growth.”