More sheep in U.K.

Press, 1 May 1981, Page 16

More sheep in U.K.

The chairman of the British Wool Marketing Board, Mr W. Elliot, made some interesting observations about the British sheep industry at the conference of the International Wool Textile Organisation in Christchurch this week.

After noting that there had been a record wool clip in the United Kingdom last year, he said that sheep numbers had been expanding for a year or two now in anticipation of sheep becoming more profitable once an E.E.C. sheepmeat regime was negotiated.

That, of course, is now a reality and Mr Elliot said that this had given a very satisfactory price to United Kingdom producers. This was currently just under $5 per kg in New Zealand currency or the equivalent of about $75 for a 15kg carcase (worth around $lB to $l9 in New Zealand). This had meant that wool had become a decreasing proportion of the income of farmers but would, of course, assist in maintaining large sheep numbers in the country. The final results of the June, 1980, census for sheen including' lambs - the lamb crop was especially good last year — showed an increase of 5 per cent to 31.45 M, which was said to be largest number since records began in the 1860 s. However, it was not to be

expected that this rate of expansion could be maintained —• the number of shearlings had declined over the year and sheep numbers at the December, 1980, census were no greater than a year earlier. However, it was anticipated that the number of adult sheep by the summer would have increased by 3 per cent . . , With the increased prices being obtained for sheepmeat,Mr Elliot said that a widely used practice was developing in the United Kingdom for lowland farmers to lamb under cover and shear the ewes before lambing. This reduced the mortality rate of lambs and give a higher liveweight at birth. The board was now finding that wool was being delivered over a much wider season with substantial quantities coming in during January and February, which were previously winter months. Mr Elliot said that more and more slaughterhouses in the United Kingdom and Europe were now turning to the pre-slaughter shearing of sheep. He had a hopeful comment to make about the future for w'ool. Over the past two years in the United Kingdom, and this also applied in the main wool consuming countries, wool had increased its share of the total fibre used in the wool textile industries.

In 1979 wool made up 50.® per cent of the fibre used im the wool textile industry ire the United Kingdom, but i« 1980 the percentage increased to no less than 55.3 J per cent. At the present time Mr Elliot said that wool was a> very cheap fibre indeed and) highly competitive with synthetic fibres — "the wool price we are currently obtaining at our sales is only 40> per cent in real terms of what we were obtaining as long as four years ago.” They believed that the trend to wool providing a higher proportion of all fibres used would be maintained, and when the wool textile industries moved out of recession the result would be a very significant increase in the demand for wool and a marked increase in auction prices.