Lamb Chops

We had a historical first in 2010.  Your basic ram sold for more than $100 in Australia for the very first time in the history of sheep.  Look for more records - - the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization is forecasting a 300,000-ton shortage in the global lamb market over the next five years.  The growth is coming from consumers in the Middle East and Aria.  Supply constraints are a function of -- (1) The U.S. getting out of the ovine game, (2) British hoof-and-mouth scare in 2001, and (3 Falling wool prices in the 1990s drastically shrunk herds in Australia.

Australian sheep prices are up 77% this year and wool prices are at 14-year highs.  Sheep shortages have led to increases in camel meat in Saudi Arabia this year.  We have global money flowing increasingly in two directions - - money flowing toward oil in the Middle East and manufactured products in Asia. 

Watch the global sheep market and see if it is able to respond to increasing demand.  It is also a good measure of the changing global marketplace and geopolitical power shifts.

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