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? Why should we care about the American Sheep Industry ?

Sheep thrive on grass.

In an era when agriculture is evolving toward an increasingly chemically intensive, geographically and economically concentrated, and aesthetically unfulfilling assemblage of specialized industries, sheep husbandry has the potential to offer much that foreign imports and other land uses cannot:

• Poultry and hog industries are increasingly, perhaps irreversibly, headed toward factory farming concentrated in midwestern and southern confinement facilities. Sheep husbandry offers a way to raise meat in the U.S. in a decentralized, genetically diverse population while caring for open landscapes. Increasing concern about susceptibility to disease and resistance to antibiotics in confinement operations underscores the importance of viable alternatives.
  
• Sheep husbandry can be a viable way to raise food and fiber on lands that are susceptible to erosion or other watershed damage if subjected to crop agriculture. The prospect of allowing all such land to revert to open lands with no domestic livestock is appealing to many people. However that option does nothing to address the growing noxious weed populations invading millions of acres of American landscape, nor the economic impact to communities that benefit from grazing on that acreage. The prairie grasses evolved in the presence of hooved, grazing animals; if managed properly, the animals improve the sod.
  
• Replacement of sheep by cattle has already occurred to a substantial degree, but recent overproduction and price slumps in the cattle industry do not favor that trend. Furthermore, when managed properly, sheep grazing can be less stressful to riparian and arid ecosystems than cattle operations. Both the cattle and sheep industries would benefit from a focus on synergy rather than competition; sheep eat species that are undesirable to cattle graziers, and cattle can function as guard animals in joint herding systems.
  
• Although the domestic sheep industry has declined, it is far from dead, and acceptance of its total demise would mean the loss of thousands of jobs on farms and in supporting services.
• Although reliance on Australian and New Zealand supplies seems numerically plausible, it leaves American wool users completely at the mercy of Australian drought, fluctuations of Chinese wool supply and consumption, and the vicissitudes of global transport and storage procedures. These are all proven disruptive factors in the global wool and lamb markets. Furthermore, foreign wool suppliers are not immune to predator and related land use controversies. Consider the 3000-mile long fence in Australia for example, and it becomes clear that the Australian dogie has inspired taxpayer expenditure, slaughter and ecological interference that may well exceed the coyote's influence on American policies. (National Geographic, April, 1997).
  
• Sheep husbandry offers an entry into agriculture for American youth unmatched by other domestic livestock and crop farming. Our increasingly urban culture needs to cultivate connections to the land, and sheep are accessible to very young children in ways that cattle, factory hogs, and cropland agriculture cannot be.
  
• A domestic, regionally diverse sheep industry offers opportunities for consumers to experience a range of extraordinary and diverse natural fibers. Do we want to go the way of the industrial apple growers, reducing ourselves to granny smith and red delicious, and then scramble desperately to revive diversity when consumers get bored?
  
• Many people love wool, related exotic fibers and the animals that grow them, and Americans will continue to explore sheep products whether or not there is a large-scale domestic industry. Why not foster such creative energies to nourish a vigorous industry, providing access to unique food and fiber for more than just an affluent few?

Sheep husbandry, like any form of agriculture, can improve or degrade the land. Like any industry, it can be well managed or mismanaged. As consumers, we have the power to influence the direction of sheep management in America. Whether we select lamb and wool, and the way we choose our suppliers, will ultimately dictate the viability and methods of sheep ranching.

As sheep ranchers, we must in turn, examine our own choices. Sheep numbers have declined from about 40 million to about 8 million since the 1940s. The diminished quantities have begun to cripple the processing infrastructure, further exacerbating the price discrepancies between lamb and the other meats (pork, beef, poultry). Until recently, lamb marketers ignored consumer demand for lean meats and convenient cuts. Change is underway.

We have allowed an entire industry of petroleum-based synthetic fibers to induce cultural amnesia about wool's superior qualities--its natural beauty, its durability, its non-slimy comfort over a huge temperature range. Competent growers of appropriate sheep breeds are now producing non-scratchy, clean, lustrous wool fibers. Rejuvenation of the Wool Sweater in international fashion indicates that we are waking up, but American manufacturers are playing catch-up.

There is undoubtedly some truth to the notion that much of the clamor for preserving ranches is a nostalgic cry for hanging onto a bygone lifestyle. But we recognize that this country was not built by people who emulated their grandfathers. We believe that the sheep industry can and must adapt its traditional techniques in the interest of preserving the best of its traditional values.

THIRTEEN MILE LAMB & WOOL COMPANY 13000 Springhill Road Belgrade, Montana 59714 (406) 388-4945 becky@lambandwool.com