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Get your free copy04 February 2013, 12:49 PM
- New Eblex figures have found that English sheep producers are losing £26 per animal raised
These are the greatest losses for people in the industry since 2006, and come from a combination of low prices and increasing production costs.
In 2007, the average cost of production for a lamb was £68, but today it has risen to £91.
There is also a threat from cheap lamb imports from New Zealand, and a decline in overall demand for the meat.
John Cross, chairman of Eblex, said, “The industry is experiencing a perfect storm of depressed farmgate prices and increasing costs, creating the worst trading conditions the industry has known for over half a decade. If we continue seeing large quantities of cheap imported products on the shelves, the lamb market is unlikely to recover in the way we would usually expect it to.
“It is essential we operate in a free worldwide market. However, everyone must bear in mind their wider responsibility to nurture a more stable trading environment in order to create a sustainable global lamb supply chain.”
