Improved lamb prices essential to healthy sheep sector, warns IFA

THE future of the sheep sector, worth more than €400 million a year to the economy, is dependent on an improved return from the lamb price chain, as well as urgent action by the Government to deliver on commitments already given, the Irish Farmers Association (IFA) has warned.

IFA president Padraig Walshe said that the sector’s 34,000 sheep farmers, who produce 67,000 tonnes of sheep meat a year, are under extreme financial pressure. Lamb prices have fallen excessively in recent weeks.

A price of €3.50/kg, less than €80 a lamb, is at a similar level to what applied over 20 years ago. It is making sheep farming unviable and threatening the sector’s future.