Last week’s sheep page featured Kevin Hanrahan’s views on Brexit from the recent Irish Grassland Association sheep conference, but there were also lots of other topical market-related views discussed.

In his presentation, Joe Ryan of Meat Industry Ireland (MII) outlined the association’s five-year development plan for the Irish sheep sector. The plan was launched a few weeks before the Brexit vote in June 2016 and while there are many other factors at play now, Joe says that this may not necessarily be a bad thing as it allowed the plan to be developed on a blank canvass.

The main goals of the plan are rebuilding the national flock to 3m ewes and growing annual output by 1m lambs. According to MII, this in turn has the potential to increase the value of exports by €150m, generate an additional 500 jobs in the processing sector and increase sheepmeat exports by 20,000t.

While the plan was developed without the influence of Brexit, it cannot now be ignored, with Joe explaining that trade with the UK is vital to securing overall market balance. He highlighted the UK as a 297,000t market and as such being a major player in the total EU market of 943,000t of sheepmeat.

There are now unfortunately numerous uncertainties that can influence the market and restrict free trade with the UK. Gaining increased market access was raised as a possible solution to limiting this potential.

Joe said that the recent increases in resources committed by Minister Creed into developing access to new markets would be a major help once implemented. He highlighted progress on securing access to the Chinese market for beef as helping to commence the access negotiations for sheepmeat. The US was also emphasised as providing strong market prospects and in this context he highlighted the need to strengthen our sheep traceability system with the implementation of full EID across the national flock.

Meeting market requirements was raised as both a challenge not only for farmers but also the processing sector. The importance of farmers delivering a consistent, quality-assured product was raised as a must to avoid lack of consistency. A huge challenge in delivering this is increasing seasonality of production.

On the processing side, Joe said that processors need to continue recent progress on product innovation and explore ways of adding value to products while also making sheepmeat more desirable to younger consumers.

“We have free access to a potential market of 500m consumers in the EU, possibly 435m depending on Brexit negotiations. Consumers are becoming more conscious about sustainability. We have a product that has strong sustainability credentials, we need to be in a position to take advantage of this by delivering on consistency and product innovation”, he said.

Competition from New Zealand

Bord Bia’s Declan Fennell highlighted negotiations on New Zealand’s tariff-free quota of 227,000t as having a major influence on future market dynamics within the EU. He said that given the make-up of New Zealand’s sheepmeat sector, where scale is driving production of 450,000t of sheepmeat, of which over 90% is exported, Ireland will never outmanoeuvre New Zealand on scale and price. However, Declan pointed out that Irish sheepmeat is seen as a fresher and tastier product. He also said there are many challenges coming down the track for New Zealand.

“Water quality is becoming a major focus in new Zealand. Seventy-two per cent of waters are classified as suitable for swimming and by 2040 there is a target to increase this to over 90% suitable for swimming. Combating water pollution is becoming big news in New Zealand and this will affect future production and possibly add extra costs. To make this happen, New Zealand will need to erect some 56,000km of fencing in the coming years, enough fencing to cover the distance from New Zealand to the EU three times.”

Declan also highlighted changes to the Bord Bia Beef and Lamb Quality Assurance Scheme as helping to streamline the audit process and give producers more flexibility. “The close-out period will give producers an opportunity to rectify minor discrepancies, while measures such as introducing a dedicated helpline for farmers will also help.”

Delivering consistency

Tyrone farmer Isaac Crilly’s farming system has been featured previously and delivered numerous practical messages. One message that fits in perfectly with marketing of lamb is that marketing of lambs at the correct weight makes sense for the producer and the processor. Isaac presented drafting data for 2016 which showed that 100% of lambs recorded conformation and fat scores within the classes R and U and fat scores 2 and 3L.

Furthermore, all lambs delivered a carcase weight of between 16kg and 21kg. Commenting on the negative impact of delivering overweight carcases and the negative effect of this for farmers on delivering free sheepmeat, Isaac said: “There are enough charities to be giving away your money to without giving it to the factories as well.”