Domestic Sheep Market Headwinds

Have you purchased lamb from the market recently? What kind of market did you buy it from? If it was a large grocery chain, chances are better than 90% the lamb cut came from Australia or New Zealand. The majority of lamb found in the market comes from overseas. Do you know what that lamb went through to get to your plate? Do you know if USDA regulations were applicable to how the sheep was raised in that other country? Do you wonder why imports are stronger than the domestic market? Read on.

For every one lamb raised and sold to market in the US, there are 4.25 lambs imported from Austrailia and New Zealand. This has to mean that domestic market conditions are unfavorable for production. What are the market conditions leading to this paradigm? In the December 2023 volume of The Shepherd, Lee Hawes addresses this in great detail. Much of what is written below is straight from his column.

Data from online sources shows that for every lamb Lee sold for $170 it was worth $261 Australian dollars. The cost of production in Australia is significantly lower due to the lack of oppressive regulation and taxation. Land taxes to produce the same units of marketable lamb here in the US is three times the cost found in Australia. Further, in Australia depredation is permitted at levels not allowed in the US. We are currently facing significant increases in predation by apex predators at rates not seen in decades due to wildlife preservation efforts and farmland being returned to scrub cover for predators. This increases the capital required to protect the market lambs.

What about import regulation? The same body charged with promoting policy for American lamb is complicit with importation of Australian product. How then, does an American sheep farmer compete? They can't compete on the same basis or the same market parameters.

So, how does the American sheep farmer succeed? Differentiation. The one thing you will NEVER know about ANY imported meat is where it came from, whose farm it was on, how the meat was raised, what chemicals or drugs the animal was exposed to, or even the environmental practices of the farmer who raised, not dozens, but thousands of these animals together on wide-open expanses of land that was depredated extensively. 

Without import restrictions of sheep, pork and beef - the American consumer will never know what it took to produce that meat on their plate and how healthy it really is (or isn't). Sustainable and environmentally conscious meat production is possible and viable with awareness and consciousness of the impact of our individual choices. 

In fact - you probably didn't know this - there's a difference between Lamb and Mutton. The lamb leg you bought from the grocery chain, probably isn't either, but is in between and isn't quite the flavor and tenderness you could have with a properly raised and harvested lamb.