United Kingdom-Lamb production and exports.
UNITED KINGDOM-LAMB PRODUCTION.
SPRING is the perpetual season of renewal in the countryside which is invariably epitomised by young lambs gambolling around the fields and on the hills in the sunshine. Initial reports suggest that there will be a better than average crop of lambs in Scotland this year and that shepherds and farmers have enjoyed a slightly less demanding few weeks as a result of favourable weather conditions.
However, the stark fact remains that sheep production is in the process of a major decline, not just in Scotland and the UK, but also in all of the major countries where sheep are reared. This is not a new trend, but rather an ongoing process.
The latest information from Brussels states that total EU production of sheep meat during 2008, at 949,000 tonnes, was down by over 60,000 tonnes on the previous year and represents the first time for over 50 years that this figure has fallen below one million tonnes.
The slaughter figures are equally negative, with last year’s EU kill – and that includes not just lambs, but old ewes at the end of their productive life – amounting to 64.6 million head. That may sound like a lot of sheep, but the reality is that throughput in abattoirs in 2008 was almost seven million lower than in 2006.
The UK remains the largest producer in the EU, and here the figures for last year were somewhat distorted as a result of the outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease and the inevitable movement restrictions that the industry was subject to in late 2007. Total UK output in 2008 increased by 6 per cent as farmers were forced to hold on to lambs that they were unable to market in the previous year. It has taken some time for the market to resume a normal trading pattern, but it is clear that sheep and the eating of lamb are not in fashion.
Spain ranks second in the EU league of sheep production, but here again the indicators are virtually all pointing in a negative direction. Production in 2008 was estimated to have fallen by 20 per cent to little more than 166,000 tonnes.
North of the Pyrenees in France, a similar scenario prevails with a decline last year in output of 7 per cent to just 118,000 tonnes. Meanwhile, across the water in the Republic of Ireland sheep are disappearing fast with a fall of 10 per cent in the number of breeding ewes in little more than five years.
Down under the news is much the same with both Australia and New Zealand witnessing substantial flock reductions. Sheep numbers in New Zealand are at the lowest level in almost 40 years.
The expectation is that there will be a 23 per cent reduction in the kill of lambs in New Zealand in the current season with production falling by 20 per cent to 360,000 tonnes.
