The domestic sheep industry is rapidly shrinking while the foreign industry accounts for over 70 percent of the market today, making it the first livestock sector in the United States to be primarily sourced from foreign countries.
In order to support not only Humboldt County’s local sheep industry, but the domestic industry at large, the Humboldt County Board of Commissioners at its Feb. 20 meeting adopted a resolution that will bring distress of the domestic sheep industry to the attention of Congressional Delegates in hopes that updated tariffs and quotas will be imposed to ensure viability of the domestic industry.
Humboldt County Manager Don Kalkoske explained that the previous administration had been made aware of the disparities of the industry over the past few decades, including the fact that tariffs have not been adjusted since the 1930s.
“This is just basically a resolution in support of adjusting tariffs to market conditions and making everybody pay their fair share,” said Kalkoske.
According to the United States International Trade Commission, imports from Australia and New Zealand account for virtually all of the United States’ lamb meat imports.
At its peak in 1942 the sheep industry in the U.S. saw over 56 million animals, but since then foreign imports of sheep and wool have skyrocketed to over 540 percent, with the domestic market dealing with distortions that the foreign industry is not. Now, the U.S. is only seeing about five million animals, the lowest number in history, with the market for imported sheep having grown 134 percent.
Commission Chairman Jesse Hill said that “basically [the tariff deficiencies] are driving these local sheep people out of business with the import of these other sheep so we're trying to put some controls on it.”
Since the tariffs have not been increased in decades, they are immaterial to today’s market and at today’s rates the numbers would have to be adjusted significantly.
According to the resolution approved by the Board, “adjusted for inflation, $3 per head in 1930 is $54 per head today, 7 cents per pound in 1930 is $1.25 per pound today, and 5 cents per pound is $0.89.”
Other counties such as Elko and Pershing are also supporting similar resolutions, according to Hill.
With a rich Basque culture that proudly utilizes lamb in many of its infamous food dishes, a healthy agricultural community that uses sheep to graze on invasive and noxious weeds and for meat, a 4-H community of young agriculturalists raising sheep, and many more important factors makes protecting the local domestic sheep industry relevant and critical.
Without a change, according to the approved resolution, “the downward trajectory of the domestic sheep industry will continue to the point where it will soon become the first livestock industry in America to fall completely to import competition.”