The possibility of EU lamb prices hitting €9.75/kg by 2035 will not be enough to stem the decline in EU sheep flocks over the coming decade, according to the latest medium-term outlook for agriculture from the European Commission’s research wing.

The corresponding 2035 outlook report published just one year previous had pencilled in an €8.60/kg lamb price for EU farmers by then, although this previous prediction had been made with the assumption that the EU’s sheepmeat output would only drop to 547,000t in 2035.

The updated outlook anticipates a steeper decline in sheep and goat output to 539,000t, as the report expects the sheep sector to take an output slump of 0.7% every year for the next decade.

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This forecast follows a 16% tumble in the EU’s sheep and goat herds since 2010, equivalent to a drop of 13m head and a significant proportion of which came in 2025.

An almost 1% per year sheepmeat output decline in western EU member states is expected over the coming decade, while eastern member states’ flocks are anticipated to undergo less severe decreases.

Meanwhile, an expected increase in the EU’s Muslim population should keep sheepmeat consumption “steady”, leaving imports set to increase by 1% per year to fill the supply-demand gap. The report also warned that less China-orientated exporting trends in Australia and New Zealand, which make up roughly three-quarters of global sheepmeat exports, could leave the EU’s sheep sector under even more intense pressure to hold ground.

However, the report noted that headage payments and a continuation of currently favourable prices may “somewhat counterbalance these negative trends” – but only if livestock disease outbreaks do not worsen these already declining trends.