Lambing ewes outside in shirt sleeves in April on a Cumbria hillside - lambing time doesn't get much better than that especially when the farmer concerned had just enjoyed a bonanza trade selling almost 100 hoggets the day before at the local mart. It's certainly been a long time coming but the sheep sector is, for the time being at least, recouping lost ground. Currency driven the prime trade may be, but hopefully it will have a stabilising influence and arrest the decline in ewe numbers we've seenin recent years. It's ironical that higher prices for finished stock have come at a time when the UK is coping with the impact of the world's financial crisis, but the constraints on domestic spending has inevitably hit the big carpet retailers - and that's not a good trend for wool.
展开▼
