Lamb prospects looking good into 2011

The current lamb crop is expected to prove smaller than was forecast at the start of the year, helping to maintain the relatively strong finished lamb market through the remainder of this season and into 2011.

This, says Eblex, is despite any dampening of consumer demand as prices stay relatively high and national austerity measures take effect.

The market assessment is based on December agricultural survey results, lambing rates, trade figures and other significant market influences. The survey, however, did show the contraction in the national breeding flock to be slower than of late.

Mark Topliff, senior Eblex analyst, said there was an annual contraction of around 1 per cent in the national breeding flock compared with the 5 per cent fall the year before.

Confidence

“Indeed, the 2010 survey is expected to show almost no change in overall flock numbers, as producers take confidence from the better market conditions of late, and the introduction of EID has far less an impact than initially feared,” he said.

“What is more, the breeding flock is considered likely to remain stable through 2011.

“With this stabilisation and the generally younger flocks resulting from relatively high rates of culling over the past two years, culling rates are anticipated to fall noticeably to around 13 per cent in 2010 and stay at this level going into 2011.”

In a nutshell, the reduction in culling together with lower lambing rates under the harsher than normal conditions of last winter, is forecast to set overall domestic sheepmeat production down by around 8 per cent on 2009 - around 278,000 tonnes.

This, said Mr Topliff, would be nearly twice the annual decline forecast earlier in the year.

At the same time, annual import volumes are down by more than 12 per cent this year – mainly due to a rebuilding of New Zealand flocks following recent droughts. They are not expected to show any recovery over the remainder of the season and are only forecast to increase slightly in 2011.

With fewer lambs projected to be produced in both France and Ireland, in particular, tight supplies in the main European markets are also likely to ensure export demand continues to be firm too, despite the recent strengthening of of sterling against the euro.

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