Northern Ireland bucks sheep production trends

Sheep output in Northern Ireland bucked the trend of a significant reduction in throughput witnessed across the majority of the main sheep producing nations in Europe.

The number of sheep slaughtered and exported was recorded at 1.03m head in 2024, less than 1% lower than in 2023.

This compares to the sheep kill in Ireland falling by over 13% and in excess of 8% in Britain. As detailed in Table 1, analysis of Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs (DAERA) figures shows the sheep kill in Northern Ireland fell by 45,919 head or 9% in 2024.

The lamb and hogget kill reduced by 44,630 head or 9% while the ewe and ram kill fell by 1,289 head or 5%.

Higher exports

The reduction in the sheep kill was compensated for by the number of sheep exported live increasing by 42,157 head, or 8%, and recorded at 572,370 head.

Northern Ireland is uniquely positioned in that there are over 100,000 more sheep exported live than processed in factories.

As detailed in Table 2 there was a marked change in the destination of live exports in 2024 with the Irish market reducing in dominance.

The number of sheep exported for direct slaughter and to farms was recorded at 368,496 head, a reduction of over 60,000 head on 2023 volumes.

The fall-off in export volumes to Ireland were destined for the British market with numbers exported increasing by shy of 70,000 head.

Exports to the UK market comprised of both hoggets and cull ewes with many presented live in British sales during periods of peak demand.

New markets for live exports were also developed to destinations in continental Europe with 26,600 sheep exported live for direct slaughter.

A significant percentage of these were destined for the Dutch market. This was similar to the figure of 6,389 sheep exported to farms.

DAERA figures show that there were practically no sheep imported to Northern Ireland with just 190 head recorded as being imported from Ireland under the classification of breeding and store sheep, while there was just seven sheep recorded as being imported under the same categorisation from Britain.