The worldwide marketplace still holds the key to Welsh farming’s long term future prosperity despite a difficult 2015 for Welsh Lamb, according to Hybu Cig Cymru - Meat Promotion Wales' (HCC) operations manager Prys Morgan.
Morgan commented: “We’ve had to put up with low exchange rates that have hammered our exports while facilitating a flood of cheap imports from New Zealand that have hacked at lamb prices for most of the summer and autumn.
“The market has been saturated at times by over-supply and on top of that supermarket trade battles have seen adjustments on farmgate returns that have minimalised the percentages of producer payments that come from products on the shelves.
“We have been marketing our premium PGI Welsh Lamb products in the eye of this perfect storm and have seen lesser brands barge their way into our shelf spaces purely because they have become cheaper.”
He went on to explain that the same wider global influences that caused problems this season can help provide the elusive route to profitability required by the industry in the days without subsidy.
Morgan continued: “Our work in opening new markets, and in supplying more of our products to our established export territories, will build to provide a platform to shore up prices even when the vagaries of exchange rates and supply have an impact.
“HCC, with our processors and producers, has an essential role to play in opening new markets and directing those markets to the great taste of PGI Welsh Lamb – and the supermarkets have a key role to play in protecting supply sources to make sure they have products to sell in this future landscape.”
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
