Since 2008, on average, between one and two sheep farms have disappeared every day in Spain. Some 8,000 have been added, in a constant trickle, to an account that does not stop growing and that has placed a traditional sector at a turning point that it cannot stop facing.
However, this decline, linked to a drop in consumption and stagnant prices, is giving rise to a reconversion of the sector in which some companies and cooperatives are trying to reverse this dynamic.
"The only way to move forward is through quality improvement and dissemination," says Diego Franco, marketing advisor to the I.G.P. Regulatory Council. Ternasco de Aragón and Marketing Director of Grupo Pastores, a cooperative made up of more than 800 Aragonese farmers. “You have to explain the properties of the product”, he points out, “but also improve the working conditions and the profitability of the farmers. Without the latter, it doesn't matter if the consumer values lamb, because there won't be anyone who produces it”.
It is 9 in the morning and we are approaching the farm that Miguel Zoco, president of the Casa de Ganaderos cooperative (which is part of the I.G.P), has on the banks of the Ebro. He receives us in overalls, managing the herd while we speak .
“There are no young people who want to join, because you don't get what you should get,” he explains. In a corner, a sheep has just given birth to a couple of lambs. "You see it? It is what this profession has, that it does not understand commitments. You have to do the job when it has to be done, whether it's hot or snowy. Or even if I'm here, talking to you."
Sheep meat prices have remained stagnant in Spain for almost two decades, which, added to the increase in fixed costs, means that the profitability of the farms is less and less. "You need to have a minimum number of sheep to make it profitable," says Zoco. “You cannot work with 200 or 300. A sheep produces, on average, 1.5 lambs a year. And I sell each lamb for €90. You just have to do the numbers. We cannot afford to grow in personnel in these conditions”, he comments. “That is why only those who come from a family tradition are left in the trade”.
From the regulatory council of the I.G.P., as from the main producer cooperatives, work is being done to reverse the trend. The objective is to stop the fall in consumption, deseasonalize a product that is currently closely linked to specific moments of the year and associated with the celebration. Diversify to make it attractive to younger audiences and, above all, put an end to preconceived ideas regarding its nutritional profile.
“Projects such as the Agnei Ibérico or the new cuts such as the French Rack, the churrasquitos or the tournedós that Grupo Pastores is putting on the market; the Paquito campaign, the Ternasco de Aragón sandwich, tapas and cooking contests; campaigns with restaurants… We are making a very significant effort to reach other consumer groups; to diversify, so that many people stop associating us exclusively with weddings and banquets and get to know the diversity of a product with a centuries-old tradition in this area and that adapts perfectly to everyday food."
But also the nutritional aspects, at a time when meat consumption seems to focus more than ever on these issues, are key. “We collaborate with the university, with research projects to identify the most interesting elements in consumption from a nutritional point of view”, explains Franco. “This is where the idea of La Carne Rosa was born, which is how we define lamb: it is sustainable and tasty like quality red meat, but it has a fatty profile in certain cuts and a presence of cholesterol, if we talk about animals like ours. , from autochthonous breeds raised on pasture, which brings it closer to white meat and makes it very interesting nutritionally”.
Ángel Ruíz Mantecón, a Livestock Systems researcher at the Mountain Livestock Institute of the CSIC and advisor to Petra Mora, a project based in the province of Zamora, where grazing is also committed: "the profile of of the meats from grazing animals provides an important content of Omega-3 and unsaturated fatty acids. And this is information that is of great interest to the consumer.”
In Dehesa de la Guadaña, the 640-hectare farm that the company manages on the banks of the Esla River, 1,400 churra sheep live extensively in a forest of 16,000 holm oaks. “The traditional management system is a differential fact in the market today. The lambs are raised extensively, with natural lactation. And that not only has an impact on the quality of the meat, with a higher quality fatty acid profile, but also, and this is important, on the maintenance of the territory. There are not so many farms of churra sheep grazing that remain and that has a lot of value”, indicates the researcher.
"The quality of the meat, based on these parameters -grazing, natural feeding, autochthonous breed, pasture- is key to providing added value to the product and differentiating it in the market. In recent years, more productive breeds have entered, which are raised intensively, but the nutritional profile of these meats is different. That of the churra sheep that is managed under pasture in its natural environment is different, much more interesting from many points of view, also the nutritional one”, concludes Professor Ruiz Mantecón.
Juan Naranjo is an agronomist and owner of the Calaveruela cheese factory in Fuente Obejuna (Córdoba). His business is that of sheep dairy which, although to a lesser extent, is not exempt from the same trends as meat.
Although cheese consumption has grown moderately in Spain in recent years, since 2017 1,300 sheep farms focused on milk have disappeared. Perhaps because dairy production is necessarily related to meat production. As the cheesemaker points out, “the sheep does not give milk if it does not give birth. And if it stops, you have to sell lambs. It is curious to see how the price of feed grains grows and, strangely, the price of lamb is getting lower."
“In Spain the key is the use of pastures. If you have to buy cereal or fodder to feed the animals, it is no longer profitable,” says Naranjo. “Sheep are animals that take advantage of natural pastures, shrubbery or crop residues. In addition to having an impact on cost issues, this reduces the amount of fuel in the field, disperses seeds and improves the organic matter content of the soil.”
Along the same lines, Miguel Zoco stated in Aragón: “If there were no farmers, Spain would be a powder keg due to the weeds. Grazing is essential to keep the field alive and practicable. If we lose that, we lose the field as we have always understood it. And with him, probably also many towns”.
“Small ruminants”, continues Juan Naranjo, “are the species most adapted to the Iberian climate, with a better ability to adapt to grazing and rainfall fluctuations. They should be one of the majority consumers of meat because of the envelope they form: price, benefit to the environment, availability, proximity to consumption centers. And flavor."
However, the price seems to be one of the barriers that the consumer identifies. “It's funny”, says Miguel Zoco, “we spent €8 to have a cubata with no problem. But they ask us €8 for a kilo of lamb meat and we raise our hands to our heads. We have to work more to raise awareness, to explain what is behind that meat, in the benefits for those who consume it, but also for those who produce it. Because in that process we all win”.
The ecological values of lamb production are another of the pillars that experts consider basic to consolidate its consumption and create a new perception of the product. "At Grupo Pastores we have, for example, a project with the Quebrantahuesos Foundation, to which we contribute calf bones to feed this endangered species," Franco explains, "and that adds to the maintenance of the ecosystem, of native breeds , of traditional trades, although these are updated and brought up to date, as is logical, and it even helps to fix the population and create employment in areas where it is very necessary. All that is what you buy when you buy ternasco”.
"Grazing is an unquestionable environmental benefit, if it is done rationally," explains Juan Naranjo. “No one better than the farmer knows how to rotate the use to let the plant continue to live. It keeps the shrub layer at bay and guarantees the penetrability of the mount. Basically, that is the definition of dehesa: an agrosilvapastoral system. It is not purely agricultural, forestry, or livestock. But all three sectors benefit in a sustainable way.”
"Extensive makes sense if to all this, be it the production of meat, milk or products derived from it such as cheese, yogurt or butter, we put the icing on the market, with a seal of quality, commitment to respectful traditional productions with the environment".
In short, it is about loading the product with added values, a process that is already underway, but in which we must continue to delve deeper. Sheep farming is traditional in Spain, it adapts to the territory and the climate and is, in many cases, one of the few alternatives to keep a rural area alive, with a sustainable productive system, capable of fixing the population, of contributing positive values to the natural environment and to put a competitive product on the market, but, above all, attractive and adapted to current consumer needs. Its crisis would mean the crisis, perhaps definitive, of a significant part of the peninsular rural area.
The Spanish sheep sector is at a crossroads, at a key moment in which the commitment to quality, diversification in production and adding value to the product seem to be the only way out for many farms, particularly for small ones; a mo
