Results 1 to 13 of 13

Thread: The Price of Lamb

  1. #1
    Pillar of the Community
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    2,388

    Default The Price of Lamb

    Does anyone know why lamb is so expensive? There are lots of them running around in fields but I have noticed that there isn't alot of it on the shelves in supermarkets. NZ legs of lamb are unusually expensive too- £27-30 per leg. There isn't the usual good volume of that either. Maybe the cost of flying it in with fuel costs rising is the answer to that. Animal food stuffs have risen too but sheep graze happily in fields. That can't have changed much over centuries.Why is our English lamb just out priced to the point no one or hardly any one can afford it? I asked a butcher friend and he said he believes our lamb is sold to France who then sell it on and often back to us- is this true? Ridiculous state of affairs. If our poor farmers get more from shipping it out and we are actually buying it back- some one is profiting from the nonsense and I doubt it is us.

  2. #2
    cathidaw
    Guest

    Default

    I saw a programme the other week about sheep farmers in Wales getting only about £4.00 per sheep at the market.
    Many of them are turning their land into craft or adventure centres.
    I hadn't noticed the price of lamb as we are almost veggies - - by that only eat '2 legged' meat

  3. #3
    Pillar of the Community
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    2,388

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by cathidaw View Post
    I saw a programme the other week about sheep farmers in Wales getting only about £4.00 per sheep at the market.
    Many of them are turning their land into craft or adventure centres.
    I hadn't noticed the price of lamb as we are almost veggies - - by that only eat '2 legged' meat
    Its the '£4-00 per sheep' bit that gets me if this is true. Terrible state of affairs for our farmers and no wonder they are changing to other sources for incomes. This Government should be sorting this out fast before we have nothing to produce except lazy kids who spend all day at these theme parks.

  4. #4
    Super Moderator Shizara's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    Nuneaton
    Posts
    2,356

    Default

    A bit late on my part, but well said Gladys. You can't blame the farming community for turning their land into other uses. I have come across an incredible number that have converted old buildings and some have had new ones built to cater for the the self catering market.
    Cool

  5. #5
    Pillar of the Community
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    2,388

    Default

    Well some one's buying English lamb. I saw a late night documentary this week about Life in night at the Smithfield market. A butcher ordered 400 lambs from Devon last thing and these were rounded up from the fields at dawn's sunrise, taken to you know where and then you know what'ed by 9am. Then the carcasses were driven to Londodn for the market opening that night. This means they are being bred to provide instant supplies but what ever the prices are I don't know. I think I missed that bit as I still can't cope with seeing them running happily and then hanging in the back of a lorry in London. I much prefer to find them in a packet!!!

  6. #6
    rebbonk
    Guest

    Default

    Here you go, all you ever wanted to know about meat prices and what farmers get

    Meat Prices UK

    Farmers prices
    Last edited by rebbonk; 23-06-2012 at 04:46 PM.

  7. #7
    cathidaw
    Guest

    Default

    being a veggie almost I prefer to see them as little woolly jumpers. ( either way.)

  8. #8
    Mari
    Guest

    Default

    Quote Originally Posted by cathidaw View Post
    being a veggie almost I prefer to see them as little woolly jumpers. ( either way.)
    I'm pretty much veggie myself Cathi, I used not to eat any meat at all, and never liked lamb or beef when I was a child.
    The only meat I eat now is chicken, turkey and fish.

  9. #9
    Super Moderator Shizara's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2006
    Location
    Nuneaton
    Posts
    2,356

    Default

    I think some of the more obscure categories depend upon what is popular at the time. Pescatarians eat fish and no other meat. Interesting term but I prefer to say I don't eat red meat, fowl or pork but I do eat fish so don't consider myself a vegetarian because fish is flesh not a veggie.
    Cool

  10. #10
    Mari
    Guest

    Default

    Yes, Shiz, fish is meat too, I'm no more a strict veggie, since I gradually came back to eating , just chicken, fish . love my veggies though. I keep meaning to buy a good veggie recipe book, otherwise ordinary recipe books include all kinds of meat that I don't use.

  11. #11
    Pillar of the Community
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    2,388

    Default

    Thank you Rebbonk, (why do we have to have everything in Kgs?- tongue in cheek but still) Well, I used to steer well away from any meat when I lived in the middle east as a child up to age 7. I think I have written about it before. I find I have reached a level of choice to be between an ostrich and a caring concerner for welfare. I'd like to know that what I eat if it was on 4 legs, 2 or swam around or just hitched on to rocks etc was actually allowed to live its breathing days as naturally as possible with a stress free calm end. I choose not to eat pork other than smoked bacon products simply because something about it tastes and looks wrong. It also takes me back to my first encounter with a huge sow on the other side of our garden fence when I arrived here back then but that's 'my stuff.'

    At the risk of being judged badly I volunteer that I also wear leather shoes, carry leather handbags and have progressed to wearing VINTAGE furs. I wouldn't buy any new ones for welfare reasons. Whether I am fooling my self is another matter but burning an old mink that is now well past all of its suffering is a mindless waste of all of that and more. There is another school of thought that would agree that animals like mink are vermine and destructive to every thing it encounters. The animal rights activists that freed them from the farms in the 1980s have much to be responsible for as they are now rife and running a muck in our countryside. The same goes for fox hunting which brings in an even bigger mine field so I'll leave that one here for now.

    Furthermore, when you go to the Dr to get the medicine to fix your problem- do you say- 'err no thanks, it was tested on animals so I'll continue suffering.' Some do live in that way and choose alternative medicinal routes. However, most say ' Thank you Dr. ' I try a balance between the two but it still boils down to the fact that at the end of the day we stand at the top of the chain and we control all below us from doing so. I say this to share some of my imperfections as my ' logic' is flawed all over the place but the point I think I am trying to make is that I am attempting to be humane and reasonable to live within my biological need to be an Omnivore.

  12. #12
    Mari
    Guest

    Default

    I agree with what you say Gladys,
    I'm probably unusual that I chose to be a veggie when younger for the only reason that I didn't much like meat, and not because of animal cruelty. I could never be like those militant animal rights people, I don't like their outrageous tacticts, their actions are irresponisibe not to realize the consequences of their actions.
    I do think farmers nowadays have better methods of treating their livestock, and I try as much as possible to only buy free range chickens or eggs, etc.
    I also shamelessly enjoy all my woolly jumpers and leather shoes.
    I don't really know if they still do lab test products on animals. But I did watch a programme quite a long while back, on using rabbits for testing somethin, I couldn't watch too much of it, and they shoved this needle right into the rabbits nostril, of course the rabbit was wriggling and struggling, I think they killed it after the experiment. It was quite upsetting at the time.

  13. #13
    Pillar of the Community
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Posts
    2,388

    Default

    Yes Mari- they still test with animals. Vetinary students have to learn on animals. I recall my vet friend telling me as a student they had to learn about pain in cats. They were all given a cat in a lab and had been shown in previous classes how to do anaesthics etc and in this case; craniotomies on them to expose the cats's brains. They began and she said it was weird because having removed the top of the cat's skull it was awake and seemed quite unphased. They then had to introduce electric currents to various parts of the brain to elicit different responses. All cats were humanely destroyed after this. She loves cats as I do and whilst it made her a humanely professional practioner it didn't help the cat that helped her to that goal. So when you go to the Doctor- he or she will also have been taught on animal studies first.

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •