Irish consumers may face higher lamb prices this Easter because of a scarcity of lamb here for the export markets.
A lamb producer in the west, Mr Laurence Fallon, said yesterday that supplies of spring lamb are expected to be extremely scarce for Easter.
"Prices have already exceeded €5 per kg and producers should be insisting on a premium price for their product," said Mr Fallon, who is chairman of the Irish Farmers' Association's national sheep committee.
"Last year sheep numbers at the meat plants fell by 690,000 head. Numbers will be equally scarce throughout the 2003 season and prices should remain very firm," he said.
Spring lamb numbers are very low because the area which produces most of the early crop, the south-east, had many large herds depopulated in the drive to rid the national herd of scrapie.
Many sheep farmers have also reverted back to lambing their ewes later in the year because of poor returns in recent years.
The sheep trade has not yet returned to normal following the foot-and-mouth crisis in 2001, which presented Ireland with a unique opportunity in the French market because British exporters were not allowed to service that market.
This propelled the Irish price to an historic high but with the return of Britain to the international markets, prices slipped last year.
So far this year, Irish sheepmeat export plants have processed 403,631 sheep, an increase of 75.2 per cent on last year.