Lower volumes of New Zealand lamb will be available for the UK market this Easter. Beef + Lamb New Zealand estimates its lamb crop will continue the downward trend in recent years, with numbers back 0.7% on 2018 levels.

Export lamb volumes are estimated to have fallen sharper by 4.4%.

In the first four months of the lamb season in New Zealand, slaughter numbers fell by 9.1%. This is largely due to improved weather conditions meaning farmers were not forced to market lambs early due to drought.

Looking further ahead, the kill could be down by up to 3% for the rest of their lamb season.

The tight supply is welcome news to UK farmers who are anxious about high volumes of New Zealand lamb imports during any Brexit market turmoil.

Export figures for Kiwi lamb suggest some rebalancing away from the European market towards China and the US in late 2018 and early 2019.