Diminishing lamb stocks has seen sheep prices rise by up to  €1 per kg at the farm-gate in different countries in Europe.

France led the upward pricing curve at €9.13 a kg as of August 3, 2024. This was up from August 2022’s €8.01 and August 2023’s €8.06, reported the Irish Farmers Journal on August 14.

Also experiencing a similarly high annual rise is Spain, whose August 3, 2024 farm gate rate was €7.93 a kilo. Though less than in France, Spain’s rate is almost a €1.20 increase from the August 2023 price of €7.75 a kilo.

Across the British Isles, Ireland’s farmers were selling sheep at €7.10 on August 3, lower than Britain’s €7.67 a kg. 

While the Irish price is 75 pence more year-on-year, that in Britain is  €1 above August 2023’s €6.67 a kg.

Yearly EU’s Sheep Prices Averages

Other than individual countries, similar increment trends also inform the composite EU bloc. The economic region’s prices tracker between January 2020 and April 2024 shows an upward curve.

According to the European Commission, heavy lambs in January 2020 cost just  €567.37 per 100 kg (€5.67) a kg.  By April 2021, however, they cost €692.17 per 100 kg (€6.92 per kg).

Notably, the highest EU’s price during this 4-year period was  €908.57 per 100 kg (€9.09 a kg) in April 2024.  

Lamb Stocks Decline

The uptick pricing could have links to the depreciation in the bloc’s flock numbers, starting 2023. 

Though sheep declined less than goats, their decline by 3% in 2023 versus 2022 levels was still big enough to cause price swings. 

As of end 2023, there were 58 million sheep and 11 million goats across the EU, according to Eurostat.

In summary,  live lambs are getting expensive in France and other European nations due to supply-influenced pricing changes. To learn more on the supply status of Europe’s flock, read on in the statistics section below.

Europe Sheep Stock Statistics

Europe is a leading continental region in sheep production, the third after Asia and Africa in total flock.  According to FAOSTAT, the region had 119,949,049 sheep stock in 2022. This marks a back-to-back depreciation in stock from the 2021 count of 122,103,309 and 2020’s 124,089,302.

How have European Union-member country sheep numbers fared in the past decade? 

According to Eurostat, sheep numbers in the EU have decreased by 9% between 2013 and 2023. This is even as goats also depreciated in the same period by 15%. On a yearly basis, the sheep count decreased by 3% between 2022 and 2023, while goats by 5%.

Which country in Europe has more sheep per capita? 

The United Kingdom and Northern Ireland boasts both the highest sheep numbers and per capita in Europe as a continent. The sheep population here in 2022 was 33,066,000 or 27.5% of the European total and the tenth biggest flock worldwide. The UK and Northern Ireland’s sheep per capita also ranked highly in 2022 at position 6 worldwide, at 0.49 sheep per person per year.  In comparison, the world per capita leader, Chad, had 2.82 sheep per person per year in 2022.