Canada’s sheep industry got a welcome boost from the federal government last weekend with the announcement of up to $6 million to enhance traceability and eradicate disease among Canadian flocks.
Up to $4.5 million will be directed toward studying the prevalence of scrapie, a fatal neurologic disease, and developing a strategy to eliminate it.

Eliminating scrapie is key to reopening international markets and increasing the profitability of the sector, explained Jennifer MacTavish, executive director of the Canadian Sheep Federation.

When BSE (mad cow disease) was discovered in Canadian cattle in 2003, the United States closed its border to Canadian ruminants. That included sheep and goats, causing the Canadian sheep industry to contract. Flocks have been declining since 2004, and international exports have flat-lined.

“Our ability to eradicate [scrapie] will help us regain the U.S. market,” MacTavish said. “When we try to be competitive on the international market outside of the U.S. or Mexico with our product, being able to say that we’re scrapie-free or we’re eradicating scrapie increases our competitiveness.”

The funding announced also includes $733,000 to help farmers implement Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology. RFID systems help farmers boost productivity of their flocks by identify which ewes are doing well and which aren’t.

Some $354,000 will go to the CSF’s on-farm food safety management system. Another $491,000 is earmarked for the CFS and the Canadian National Goat Federation to educate farmers on identification and traceability of goats and sheep. That initiative is also aimed at regaining international markets and reassuring consumers that products can be traced from the farm of origin to the store shelf.

Needed as the funding is to farmers MacTavish said the announcement itself was a recognition of the industry’s importance.

“The fact that the agriculture minister actually took time on a weekend to come and give an announcement that was specifically for the small ruminant industry – it hasn’t happened in my tenure with CSF. So just having a federal minister who’s that committed to the small ruminant industry and who recognizes its importance in the agriculture landscape in Canada is a pretty significant step for our industry. The industry’s finally on the minister’s radar.”

Nationally, there are about 1 million head of sheep, 60 per cent of them in Ontario and Quebec. That number has declined by about 100,000 since 2004. The positive sign is that the industry shrank at a slower rate in 2009, creating hope for growth in the next few years.

The loss of international markets has led to farmers selling their flocks, and predation – mostly by coyotes – is also a problem.

“What we’re concerned about is that we’re going to reach a point where we have so few animals going through the system that we’re going to start losing infrastructure around the industry – we’re going to start losing processing capacity and we’re going to start losing nutritionists and anybody who touches the sheep industry.”

While the sheep industry is a fraction of the size of the beef or pork industry, it’s the only meat commodity that’s seeing an increase in consumption. Lamb consumption has increased 30 per cent over the past decade, MacTavish said, due to increasing diversity in the population and an expanding palate. And the Canadian sheep industry hasn’t been keeping pace.

“We currently only fill 41 per cent of our market demand for product.”

Canada imports the bulk of its lamb from New Zealand and Australia, where flocks are also shrinking. That means conditions are right for growth in domestic lamb production, MacTavish said.

“If New Zealand can’t fill our market and Australia can’t fill our market, who’s going to fill it and why can’t it be us?”