Worcester Market

Lots of interesting conversations at the Worcester market today.

The significant feature of today were the number of cull ewes - these are sheep that have reached the end of their breeding life and are going for slaughter. Because the resultant meat is older it has a stronger flavour and is tougher. Typically such meat is used in curries and so there is a large demand from ethnic minorities for cull ewes.

Today there were hundreds of them. Some people said it was because Id was coming soon which increased the demand from the Muslim community. Others said it was because of bluetongue and the movement restrictions. Sheep that would have gone to Wales can't be moved there and so farmers, fed up with low prices for lamb, are sending good breeding ewes for slaughter. One farmer at the market said a number of the ewes were in lamb.

In one conversation a farmer just back from New Zealand told me that 15 years ago in NZ there were 80 million breeding ewes. Now is down to "only" 28 million. If farmers are getting out of production, world wide, who is going to produce our food?

"What about slaughter methods?" another farmer asked. Lamb gets slaughtered using humane methods. Cull ewes bleed to death with halal slaughter.

One pen of ewes sold for as little as £7 per sheep. What does that say about the value we place on animals?