Lamb trade returning to normal

Marts: As the lamb trade recovers from the recent protest by farmers, with the resumption of slaughtering at the factories, it is going to take a few more days before business at the processing centres gets back to normal.

The agreed base price of 475 cent/kg (170p/lb) with bonus payments of up to 6 cent/kg (2p/lb) for U grade is being adhered to by all the operating factories, but they feel that they are under more pressure because of the tight margin on export sales. But it has also been a difficult year to date for producers, who have watched their returns fall by more than 8% on the same period last year.

Producing lamb for the spring trade has been very unprofitable this year, with the early Easter resulting in many producers not having supplies ready and post-Easter prices went into freefall.