The hogg trade is up £6/head on the year as prices have risen 8% putting fat lambs to over £81/head. Lambs made over £1.90/kg at Ayr, Dumfries, Caledonian and St Boswells marts last week

Prices are 13% above the autumn low-point in 2017 and have returned levels similar to 2015. This has been aided by a strong farmgate lamb price in Europe and New Zealand, which is up 25% on last year, narrowing the historical gap between its and the UK’s lamb price.

As a result, it is less price competitive in early 2018 than it has been in the past and has provided a disincentive for more lamb to be exported to the UK. The strong farmgate prices have also been reflected in the rest of Europe, where French producers are receiving 3% more, Spanish heavy lamb producers about 18% and Irish producers are up 5%.

NSA Chair John Fyall said, “it is about time we saw a price response given the world’s supply and demand and the UK currency. It is a pity we cannot find a way of sharing it more around the store sales but there are lots of reasons to be optimistic for the coming six months. Ramadan is coming more into the production season along with earlier festivals in midsummer for heavy lambs but if currency changes things might not be so rosy.”

GB lamb price is quoted at £4.14/kg deadweight for R3L up from £3.82/kg last year. The figures from AHDB show that currency is still having an impact on the UK lamb market as the pound is currently trading against the euro at 89 pence.

The strong price is welcome as there appears to be a large volume of hoggs still to come to market. The lamb crop from 2017 was 3% up, however, auctions of prime lamb were down 5% between June and the end of the year. Furthermore, lamb slaughterings were down 7.5% between June and November.

The persistent wet weather has also been playing a part in keeping prices elevated as the supply of finished lambs is being held back by the adverse conditions leading to it lagging below demand.