Latest Moan From You and Me 2023

They're not free to produce, you know! Especially during this unseasonal drought, local sheep farmers have been having to feed expensive, bought-in feed. There's no hay because of last summer's drought and no grass because of this year's. I'd imagine (don't know ) that lambing huts need heating? Having said all that, though, local producers are selling lamb for (on average) €45/kg. Lidl are selling NZ frozen for €12/kg.

 

Well, not free to produce obviously but the hill farmers mostly seem to let them get on with it, I dont think its been dry enough to stop grass growing here, possibly been too cold for it to grow though in places.
Beef farming always seems more feeding etc. to me, as for pork, well they almost throw the stuff at you likewise chicken.
I'd say lamb is probably the most expensive of the lot.

And I think it is almost, do bugger all, in New Zealand when it comes to sheep farming.

 

Probably because there's very little actual meat on a lamb compared to a boeuf or a pig.

 

I don't understand why lamb is so expensive, for two reasons:

1. It's horrible. Ok, I concede, this is not always true. Cooked to perfection and laced with so many herbs and seasonings then doused in mint sauce and gravy it's not so bad, once all the other flavours have masked it's blandness.

2. As Pete says, it doesn't look like an expensive job. Ok, I'm not a sheep farmer, I'm sure there's more to it than I see. But they just seem to roam free up on the moors most of the time, grazing on the heather that grows wild up there, along with any young shrubs and trees that would grow into mature shrubs and trees if they weren't eaten as soon as they pop up.

 

The job is probably made a lot more expensive due to regulations, vet bills for all kinds of checks, I'm not saying it isn't right and animal welfare should be top of the list, but often I dont think it is about the welfare of the animals in question its more about making maximum profits.
I know some farmers do struggle, especially the smaller ones, but farmers love to moan and always have done.
There are some very rich farmers out there.

 

Just read about this but not sure if true

South Amerian & EU Beef being sold as UK beef, they haven't named the supermarket or any of the middle people involved

Edit It may not be anything to do with a supermarket
Yahoo is part of the Yahoo family of brands

 

I don't know if it's changed, but years ago the labelling as to which country meat was from meant diddly squat. It used to be the case that if it was 'processed' in Britain, then it could be labelled as British. So some poor animals could have spent 48 hours crammed in a trailer travelling from anywhere, only to be slaughtered, butchered and packed in Britain, then it was labelled as British.

 

I can remember when I was young seeing Argentine beef in the butchers, but it was labelled as such.

 

Was it horse?

 

No Argentina is famous for beef, at one time lots of corned beef came from there also, but I think after the Falklands they started saying it was Brazilian, off the top of my head I can't remember where Fray Bentos is but that, I believe was where all the canning factories were for corned beef from whatever country down there.

 

When I was a kid in the late 70s, early 80s folks used to colloquially refer to Argentine beef as horse. I have no idea if that was based on anything, and being a kid, I didn't think to question it. I just assumed there must have been some sort of scandal at some point. Unless it was just our local butcher at the root of the rumour.

 

Well I know they have eaten horse on the continent for years, we even export horses there, but I cant think Argentina would ship horse here, they have millions of cattle mostly just roaming free.
Probably horses are more expensive than cows down there.

The only horse meat scandal I can remember was an EU one a few years ago, but there was some kind of stigma that went back to WW2 about horse meat.



I was under the impression that the imports from Argentina stopped when we joined the common market as it seemed to disappear around that time, they tried to stop us importing Lamb from NZ around the same time but I think we managed to get round that by the fact that NZ lamb was in season at a different time of the year to European lamb.