Sheepmeat market buoyant across Australia, while Western Australia mutton slaughter booms

A small volume of interested bidders at a recent Jamestown market. Picture by Kiara Stacey. High global demand for sheepmeat has helped prices remain high later into the year, with heavy lamb in particular commanding premiums, reaching above the $9 mark in some centres. All articles from our website & app The digital version of This Week's Paper Breaking news alerts direct to your inbox All articles from the other agricultural news sites in your area Meanwhile Western Australia is turning off unusually high volumes of mutton as the state's sheep industry continues to see widespread destocking. While the national heavy lamb indicator is at 880c, trade lamb has lagged behind somewhat at 818c. The light lamb indicator was, as of Monday, at 727c, while Merino lamb was 628c and restocker lamb 699c. The national mutton indicator was 365c. Meat & Livestock Australia senior market information analyst Erin Lukey said the gap between heavy lamb and trade lamb keeps widening, counter to what ...