Sheep Industry News May 2025

President’s Notes BEN LEHFELDT ASI PRESIDENT

Moving Forward I t has been another few months of uncertainty within the federal government and subsequent adjustments for all of those di rectly or indirectly affected. Thanks to all the states and individuals who have reached out to express the importance of different federally supported sheep related operations. It is crucial to highlight the local importance of individual sheep programs and communicate that directly to local officials – especially your federal representatives and senators. ASI is happy to follow up on those local issues, but the greatest effect seems to take place when the constituents that are directly affected have their say on the issues. Speaking of constituents, we were excited to see the large contingent of sheep producers that were able to join us for the ASI fly-in to Washington, D.C. It was a telltale sign of the passion of our sheep producers and the urgency of change that is needed for opera tions to continue. I think that our time for the fly-in was ideal, since not only were appropriations asks from offices still active, but President Donald Trump’s announcement of retaliatory tariffs was only one week away from being public. Thanks to our producers, we visited with a multitude of congressional offices and came away with numerous contacts that we could follow up on after our visits. We were also able to meet with the United States Trade Representative’s office to communicate the impact of imported lamb prod uct on our American producers. Other individuals made progress on some short-term fixes for H-2A labor, discussed issues with Wildlife Services, and met with all the congressional staffs associated with writing the Farm Bill. There is no doubt that producers and constituents can have the greatest impact of change through their local congressional offices. The only problem is that the pressure on the offices needs to be constant and in-person. Overall, I felt like we came together more as a united industry and delivered messages that were heard on the hill. Thank you to everyone who gave their time to communicate our message and thanks to our lobbyist for hosting our lamb reception once again. Cornerstone Government Affairs did a great job in setting up our meetings for all four segments of the agriculture committees and preparing those ag staffers for sheep priorities in the Farm Bill. We look forward to Cornerstone continuing to follow up on our lamb priorities and communicating the needs of our industry. Our import competitors are great at manipulating their currency advantage and have a much lower cost of production to replace our domestic lamb’s market share. The most recent large year-over-year increases in imported lamb tonnage indicated the extent of the issue. If any other domestic industry sector faced what the lamb industry is facing from our import competitors, the call for repairing the situation would be huge. The United States has saddled our producers with unfunded federal mandates – labor, regulatory, endangered species restrictions, etc. Not to mention the normal predation that we as producers face daily only serves to accentuate the advantage of our competitors. As we continue to lose sheep producers, we also lose American wool. Lose American wool and we lose the lambs. Lose both and the small amount of ag-supported rural communities might be impacted drastically. These impacts not only break American pro ducers, but the communities that are reliant on their existence. This does not even consider the loss of feedyards, harvesting facili ties, spinners and millers that are reliant on domestic production. The rest of the world would love to have our domestic market be a captive market that is reliant on them as importers. We as American producers just want the ability to compete through fair trade and to continue to build and maintain our local communities and the U.S. economy.

4 • Sheep Industry News • sheepusa.org