Scottish lamb crisis looming

A mounting welfare crisis in the Scottish hills, where 250,000 lambs are running out of feed, could threaten supplies of prime lamb for processors next season.

Scotland, which relies heavily on the Mediterranean markets to dispose of £20M of mostly light lambs unsuitable for the domestic trade, has arguably been the hardest hit by restrictions imposed following outbreaks of foot and mouth disease and bluetongue.

A spokesman for the Scottish Executive, which has pleaded with Brussels and the UK to green-light a welfare cull to relieve pressure on grazing land and kickstart lamb production for 2008, said that action was needed this week or next.

Stuart Ashworth of Quality Meat Scotland said that processors supplying the UK trade were now working “pretty much to demand”, but Vivers (Scotland), a single species abattoir killing 10,000 lambs a week for export, had already closed.

Dungannon Meats at Preston, which also supplies the European market, said production had been cut by half, but it was endeavouring to redeploy staff rather than stand them down.

Half of Scottish prime lamb goes south of the border for processing. Rob Carr, livestock manager for the National Farmers’ Union Scotland, said: “Throughputs next year are going to be the big issue. There could well be a shortage. In terms of next year’s crop there are two issues: are there going to be enough tups [rams] to do what they normally do, and are the ewes going to be in sufficient fettle to carry the lambs through the winter? That’s because the lambs [which should have been exported] are on ground that the ewes would normally be grazing.”

Meanwhile, the Provision Trade Federation (PTF) reported that exports of heat-treated dairy and meat products are back to normal, although there were still a number of individual issues surrounding certification.

Clare Cheney, director general of the PTF, said some countries made paperwork unnecessarily complicated. “I was appalled at the complexity of it. On the whole, things have improved tremendously, but there are still a lot of issues to be resolved. I’m dealing with several problems a day on behalf of individual firms.”