Mutton may be a much maligned meat but it has set record prices in the past week, overtaking the per kilo price paid for cattle carcasses at livestock sales around the country for the first time.
The Australian Financial Review reports that the mutton price rally comes from the combination of a dwindling national sheep flock and growing demand for sheep meat for export, particularly from the Middle East.
Sheepmeat Council of Australia executive director Ron Cullen said that, after struggling through the long drought, producers were set for some good returns in coming years.
"This is a long-term trend and not just a spike. Sheep prices will be higher than we have traditionally been used to for some time to come. I can't remember mutton ever being higher than cattle prices - this is very unusual," he said.
Late last week, the mutton indicator was around $2.90 a kilo carcass weight, some 70¢ above last year's rate and about 12¢ above the cattle indicator for the eastern states.
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