Sheep Industry News September 2022

Market Report DAVID ANDERSON, PH.D.

Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service

Falling Lamb Prices Overshadow Industry

S harply declining lamb prices have overshadowed most everything else during the last couple of months. We might say that we’ve been here before, but the root cause starting this decline is a little different than in the past. DECLINING REAL INCOMES There is plenty of evidence that lamb demand was boosted during the pandemic. Consumers were often at home and tried a lot of new food items, including recipes that included lamb. Lamb sales also benefitted from high prices for com peting meats. This boost in lamb demand led to high prices. A surge in inflation has led to declining real incomes in recent months. Combined with high lamb prices relative to other meats, falling real incomes have led to a pullback in consumer purchases of lamb. The difficulty in moving lamb through consumer chan

nels at the previous high prices has started a chain of events including less demand for live lambs, sharply falling prices, a backlog of lambs, increasing dressed weights and over finished lambs, which reinforces falling prices. LIVE LAMB AND MEAT PRICES Live lamb prices have declined dramatically since May. Heavyweight lambs at Sioux Falls, S.D., have fallen from $255 per cwt. in May to $102 in the first week of August. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Mar keting Service reported heavyweight lambs sold on video auction for $80.25 per cwt. in the second week of August. Lightweight, feeder lambs have fallen to below the five-year average. Prices are declining due to lack of demand as events at retail back up into the live market. It appears that some mar

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