BRITISH SHEEP FLOCKS

Press, Volume LXXXV, Issue 25797, 7 May 1949, Page 5

BRITISH SHEEP FLOCKS

Numbers Still Low EFFECT ON MEAT RATIONING The slow recovery in the numbers of British sheep is the subject of criticism by John L. Illingworth, among the best known agricultural writers in Britain, in a recent issue of the “Yorkshire Post.” The best chance Britain has of increasing the meat ration is to increase sheep flocks, he says. Twopence off the meat ration and the possibility of a further cut to come—and this at a time when the nation is already showing symptoms of a grave shortage of protein in its diet,” says Mr Illingworth. “Is British agriculture making its maximum contribution, within the limits set by the shortage of feeding stuffs, to our meat supplies? In one important respect it certainly is not. In 1938 the farms of Great Britain produced a weekly average of 4100 tons of mutton and lamb. Now production is at little more than half that level and there is a yearly loss of some 94,000 tons compared with pre-war years. During the war, by deliberate policy, sheep rearing was discouraged, and by 1945 the sheep population had fallen by nearly 7,000,000, or 25 per cent. The end of hostilities brought no reversal of the tendency, as it should have done, and the position was made worse by the storm losses of early 1947. By June of that year the sheep population had declined to 16,700,000 compared with 26,900.000 in 1938. » y ear saw a recovery of some 2,000,000, but it seems that this represents little more than the rebuilding of the hill flocks after the blizzards. .The evidence suggests that the arable and grassland flocks of the lowlands—to which we must look for any increase in our supplies of homefed mutton—are still on the down grade. Take the East Riding figures, those of a typidal arable and grassland county. The number of breeding ewes fell from 140,000 in 1939 to 94,300 in 1946. Since then each successive year has brought a further fall—to 87,600 in 1947 and to 84,300 last year.

“Sheep provide obviously the best way open to us to increase our home meat production. They mature quickly, and, more important still, they can produce meat with little or no expenditure on imported feeding stuffs. Indeed, iipi many types of farming they can be maintained and even fattened on products that would otherwise go to waste. Why, then, this growing neglect of an animal which so clearly meets a national need? “It can be admitted that arable sheep, folded on roots, are generally no longer economic. Root-crops are too expensive to be grown for sheep feeding except in special circumstances; indeed, from the national point of view, labour can probably be better employed. But if we rule out the folded flocks there still remains a S rea t gap between the country’s numberl rrying capacity and Present

- “The difficulty of getting shepherds is put forward as a pre-eminent reason for farmer after farmer ‘going out of sheep? Men, it is said, are no longer willing to work a seven-day week or to sit up through the night with lambing ewes. Yet it is work that is well paid and brings other, if less tangible, compensations. Is the industry’s machinery of recruitment and training all that it should be? I think not; there is much that could be done, but is not done, by both the Ministry and the National Farmers’ Union in this field. “Again, it is pleaded that the farming revolution of the last few decades, and above all the emphasis put upon milk production, leaves little place for sheep. ‘Sheep and cattle \ don’t mix’ is a phrase, only too often heard, expressive of this supine attitude. They can be mixed to advantage, as some progressive dairy farmers, carrying flying flocks and even flocks of breeding ewes to scavenge after the dairy cows, have found out. There can be both direct profit in the practice and a marked improvement in the grassland.

“The main reason for the alarming recession of a livestock industry which should be making a major contribution to our meat supplies seems to me to be psychological. Sheep are out of .ashion, especially in high quarters from whence should come the lead towards more and bigger flocks. Of the great organisations concerned with agricultural policy the National Sheep Breeders’ Association alone has been unremittingly and determinedly active. But up to now their urgent representations have fallen largely upon deaf ears.

“'The National Farmers’ Union has shown little sign of interest in the problem. The Ministry of Agriculture has been either apathetic or defeatist; otherwise they would not have been content with a 1951-52 target for mutton and lamb production of a mere 77 per cent, of the pre-war figure. There are signs that both the union and the Ministry are beginning to wake up. In the meantime the housewife is left to make what she can of eightpennyworth of carcase meat and the nation’s health suffers.”