R-Calf is calling the domestic sheep industry the “canary in the coal mine.”
They say they have been closely watching imports in that sector rise over the years, and they worry the same could happen to the U.S. cattle industry. It is why they are asking the U.S. Trade Ambassador to investigate.
“And it’s called a global safeguard investigation, and in that investigation, what’s necessary to be proved is that the imports were a substantial cause of serious injury to a U.S. industry. We believe that the sheep industry is just an absolutely perfect example of why that path was passed, and that’s because we’ve seen our sheep industry just decimated. We’ve seen a 62% decline in the number of sheep in our inventory. We have the smallest inventories in history right now in the United States. We’ve seen 60 percent of our full-time sheep producers exit the industry, and we’ve seen the production of lamb and mutton decline by 60%,” said Bill Bullard.
Bullard says they are looking for import restrictions like tariffs, tariff rate quotas, or quantity limits.
