Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
The last several decades have not been especially kind to the North American
sheep industry. The total number of sheep has continued to fall: in 1995 there
were over 10 million head; as I write this in 2008, the number is just over
6 million. Considering that around the middle of the twentieth century there
were over 50 million head in the United States, this decline seems especially
disheartening. The numbers of U.S. farms that report having sheep hit bottom
in 2004; since then there has been a slight increase in farm numbers, with the
growth largely refl ecting more small-scale producers who keep 25 or fewer
breeding ewes, while the number of commodity-scale producers (large-scale
sheep operators who keep hundreds or even thousands of breeding ewes)
continues to fall.
In spite of the increase in smaller fl ocks, however, most sheep still come
from the largest operators, primarily in the western states and in the west-
ern provinces of Canada. According to the “Sheep Industry Economic Impact
Analysis,” a report prepared for the American Sheep Industry Association
by Dr. Julie Stepank Shifl ett in 2008, “About 2 percent of sheep operations
account for one-half of sheep and lamb production in the United States.” Yet
small fl ocks and shepherds will be better able to respond to changes in the
marketplace in coming years.
Globalization obviously has a lot to do with the seemingly endless down-
ward spiral of our sheep industry: most lamb in the grocery store and offered
on the menu at restaurants comes from foreign sources (New Zealand and
Australia are the top two exporters of lamb to the United States). But I'm ever
the optimist, and there are some factors that seem to suggest better times
ahead for shepherds.
Historically, wool was a major, driving force in the sheep industry, but as
synthetic fi bers replaced wool in most of its traditional uses and warehouses
around the world became clogged with surpluses, domestic producers began
focusing more on lamb and mutton production for the meat market. Those
who are able to direct-market their lamb especially are seeing fairly high
returns for their efforts. A growing number of producers are also pursuing
sheep for truly alternative markets — raising dairy ewes for the production
of sheep's-milk cheeses, using sheep in land management for their excellent
weed-and-brush-control abilities, or raising and marketing pet sheep. And a
small yet dedicated number of producers still focus on wool production as
their primary emphasis, but many of these concentrate on producing high-
quality fi ber for the handspinning and specialty-wool markets, which are