Ireland's sheep farmers will not directly benefit from increased exports to Britain which should have arisen because of the slaughter of 3.3 million sheep there in the continuing foot-and-mouth crisis.
Although the British Meat and Livestock Commission expects that 2.4 million of the slaughtered sheep will be breeding ewes, it believes there will still be a surplus of between 1.5 million and 1.7 million lambs on the UK market this year.
The commission has forecast that a further 400,000 ewes are expected to go into a special welfare disposal scheme and it predicted that the total breeding flock for 2001 will be 18 per cent lower than 2000 at 15.7 million head.
However, an improvement in lambing rates and increased ewe lamb retention was expected to result in the 2002 flock size increasing by 5 per cent on 2001 levels.
According to a report in An Bord Bia's "Market Monitor" this week, in the 12 months from April 2000 to March 2001, the UK market absorbed 194,000 tonnes of home produced lamb.
However, despite an anticipated reduction of more than 20 per cent in lamb production this year, the fact that no exports are anticipated before the end of the year will mean a potential surplus of 29,000 tonnes will have to be absorbed by the market over the next nine months.
The report said that because of the reduction in the sheep herd sheep-meat production is forecast to decrease by 27 per cent (97,000 tonnes) on 2000 levels to 262,000 tonnes.
Imports of sheep-meat into the UK during 2001 are forecast to decline by 7 per cent to around 115,000 tonnes.
Exports are not expected to resume for the remainder of the year and, as a result, total exports for the year are forecast to be 80 per cent lower than last year at 20,000 tonnes.
A spokesman for An Bord Bia said at the weekend that Irish exporters will not benefit directly from the situation in Britain.
However, there had been a major increase in prices being paid for Irish sheep-meat in France because Britain could no longer export there because of foot-and-mouth.
"Irish producers have already seen prices rising by 30 per cent and this is because of the scarcity created by the fact that Britain is not in the market and will not be back there because of continuing disease on the island, for the rest of the year," he said.
He said that the Bord Bia promotion of Irish lamb in France this month had been very timely and would create consumer loyalty for the produce.
The promotion continues for another week.