Tri-Nations Lamb Group Meets

November 11, 2005

November 11, 2005 -- The third meeting of the Tri-Nations Lamb Group met earlier this month in New Zealand to share information on consumer education, animal identification, animal health and general industry information beneficial to all three nations - the United States, Australia and New Zealand.

American Sheep Industry Association president, Paul Frischknecht, led the delegation in an effort to continue producer-to-producer dialogue and communications.

Resolutions from the meeting included:

Producers from Australia and New Zealand agreed to encourage lamb importers to voluntarily comply with the mandatory price-reporting (MPR) requirements until the mandatory act is re-authorized. As of early November, imported-lamb prices were the only category in all of beef, pork and lamb that were not being reported.
A proposal to implement a program to increase consumer awareness of the nutritional and health benefits of lamb was submitted. The next phase will be to determine budget requirements and specific programs.
The group supports the need to complete an analysis of the potential benefits of the liberalization in international trade of sheepmeat.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) for the group is scheduled to expire in 2006; however, there was consensus among the delegates to continue their work and seek support from each industry's board of directors to renew the MOU.
Staff contact: Paul Rodgers, 303-771-3500

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