A clampdown on visas for sheep shearers travelling from to the UK from countries like Australia and New Zealand has been flagged as having the potential lead to a major shortage of sheep shearers across the UK over the coming summer.

Westminster’s agriculture committee chair Alistair Carmichael MP claimed that without a working visa fix, the “broad consensus in the industry now” is that “we have a looming animal welfare crisis this year”.

“I think we might have 1.5m sheep that there will not be an available workforce to shear,” the MP for the Orkney and Shetland islands told the committee.

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The UK’s National Sheep Association wrote to the committee in February to flag the issues encountered by foreign sheep shearers in their attempts to obtain short-term Home Office working visas to travel to the UK for summer shearing.

Many of these overseas shearers do not hold a recognised shearing qualification despite their experience “not because they aren’t skilled, but because structures recognising shearing competency do not exist in their countries of origin”.

75 shearers at 20,000 sheep a season

Farmer-owned wool buyer British Wool warned that a shortfall of just 75 capable shearers could have major ramifications for the sheep sector in Britain.

“Whilst the numbers of overseas shearers have been limited, their ability to shear more than 20,000 sheep each has provided the industry with the capacity it has needed,” the body said.

“Many of the overseas shearers can shear approximately 200-400 sheep/day. These are exceptional rates.

“A good UK shearer, who has received training and developed skills over several seasons but does not work full-time as a contractor would expect to shear perhaps 100-150 sheep/day.”

British Wool explained that, despite its training programmes aimed at upskilling more domestic shearers, “very few of those that learn to shear at a basic level have the aptitude or willingness to progress to become contract shearers capable of shearing 15,000 to 20,000 ewes in a season”.

“This is in part due to the physically demanding nature of the work but also the lifestyle sacrifices that this requires.

“To earn a living as a contract shearer not only do you have to be prepared to spend three months of the UK summer on the road working up the country but also you need to be prepared to travel internationally through the rest of the year to maintain skills and generate an income.”

The National Sheep Association and British Wool have said that a failure to secure these shearers could result in wool being left on ewe lambs for longer, as well as ewes shorn later into the summer, posing flystrike risks and hitting growth rates.