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A flood of New Zealand lamb on supermarket shelves in Britain and Ireland has angered farmers, leading to protests and a climb down from a major retail chain.
Farmers in Ireland have staged protests outside Marks and Spencer in the centre of Dublin over the lamb imports.
And in the UK, farmers' leaders have expressed outrage over the effects of New Zealand lamb on their domestic markets, the Farmers' Guardian newspaper reported today.
Top officials from Meat and Wool New Zealand are now heading to Britain in attempt to pacify farmer representatives.
The Irish Farmers' Association accused Marks and Spencer of damaging Irish lamb producers by stocking its shelves with New Zealand lamb when Irish-produced products were readily available at what it calls a competitive price.
The retailer has reacted by announcing it will put Irish spring lamb on sale in all of its stores there next week, five weeks earlier than 2006.
The volume of sheep meat imported into the UK in 2006 was up by 3.6 per cent on 2005, but during January and February of this year imports increased by almost 12 per cent.
The European farmers say this has driven down the price they can get for lamb.
Meat and Wool New Zealand has denied it is taking over the British and Irish markets.
Anne Berryman, the industry board's regional manager for Europe, said: "From our point of view, it's not a question that we're flooding the market. New Zealand has a fixed annual quota for sheep meat imports into Europe. That hasn't changed in any significant way for many years".
New Zealand has a quota allocation of about 240,000 tonnes a year for lamb sent to EU markets -- with the UK as its biggest single customer.
It has quietly and steadily boosted the proportion of it sent as chilled lamb to compete directly with fresh product from farmers in Wales, France, Ireland and England.
In an earlier spat in the 1990s, Irish farmers raided supermarkets and dumped chilled New Zealand meat in the street.
- NZPA
