Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 22 March 2023

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Agriculture, Food and the Marine

Strategic Direction of Bord Bia: Discussion

Mr. John Murray:

The UK is a challenging market in its own right, and the Chair mentioned Welsh lamb. In the UK, there were very depressed lamb prices through January. That was the consequence of a number of factors. While the ongoing trade negotiations between the UK, New Zealand and Australia will not give direct access for lamb at this point, they will present a number of challenges in the future, as will their increasing production. Primarily, as Mr. O'Toole mentioned, consumption is our biggest challenge at present. We have seen consumption in the UK drop by almost 19% since 2019. We are tracking similar declines in France, the Netherlands and Germany and we have seen falls of between 5% and 11% in various markets over the two-year period.