The future of the EU’s sheep and goat sector

Sheep and goat sector production constituted just a small share of the output of the EU livestock sector as a whole, but this farming activity's importance was much broader in terms of its social and economic contribution to remote rural areas, not to mention the environmental contribution it made through the provision of public goods such as landscape and biodiversity conservation.

Economic and structural difficulties did not help the sector's growth and this meant that the EU was not self-sufficient but relied on imports to top up supply to its market for sheep and goats. The sector's traditional and emerging needs and the need for policy measures to address them were at the core of an own-initiative report due to be voted during the May 2018 plenary session of the European Parliament.

Author: Rachele Rossi.

There was an earlier briefing on the sheep and goat sector published in 2017.