Poor weather was yesterday blamed for a 2.5% fall in Scotland’s sheep flock over the last year.
The Scottish Government’s June agricultural census revealed a 165,400 drop in overall sheep numbers to a record low of 6,570,611, against 8,006,336 a decade ago when subsidies were paid on the numbers of animals kept.
This year’s lamb crop was down 166,700 to 3,105,094, while breeding ewes showed a 7,490 decline to 2,616,166. But other figures within the sector showed slight increases including the numbers of sheep over a year old.
Last year’s appalling weather, coupled with the harsh winter conditions, snowstorms in the spring at the peak of lambing season and record levels of liver fluke infections, are all blamed for the decline. The government said conception rates appeared poorer as lamb numbers at 49% were proportionally low compared to flock size.
Cattle numbers continued their long-term decline with the national herd posting a decrease of 2.3%, or 42,800 head, to 1,797,322. Within that female beef cattle numbers dropped 2.2% to 725,950. The dairy herd at 265,903 was on a par with 2012.
The pig breeding herd showed a 10.6% fall to 28,493 sows, the lowest on record. But pig producers appear more confident about the outlook as margins have turned positive after nearly three years of them being in the red. Supply issues in Europe have boosted ex-farm prices and lower grain costs have reduced feed bills.
The government figures confirmed what was already known about the cereals sector, with autumn sowings suffering in the poor weather and the acreage in spring crops dramatically increasing as a result.
NFU Scotland spokesman Bob Carruth said the figures would come as no surprise given the weather issues over 2012 and in the spring of this year.
But he said this year’s harvest, albeit with potatoes still to finish, would probably go down as one of the easiest on record.
But Ian Anderson, the executive manager of the Scottish Association of Meat Wholesalers, said the shrinking livestock supply base put processing businesses at risk. He said without further action to encourage suckler beef production the expectation was that cattle numbers would continue to decline. He accepted coupled payments might help, but said the need for further action remained urgent and critical.
Rural Affairs Secretary Richard Lochhead acknowledged the challenges facing the beef sector, which had high production costs. Government was doing its bit to help through the Scottish beef calf scheme and was using Cap reforms to try and do more.
But he said there was a limit to what government could do. He urged the beef sector to work collectively with retailers to incentivise increased production through, for example, supermarkets stocking more Scottish meat and paying a fair price to farmers.