THE Wool Board is seeking help from its producers to assess the impact of the CAP review on sheep numbers.

Chairman Frank Langrish has written to about 1,000 producers, including regional representatives, large flock masters throughout the UK and a proportion of Welsh producers, asking whether they are planning to maintain, increase or decrease their sheep numbers as a consequence of the planned changes.

The board's fixed costs are directly linked to the size of the clip, so the size of the national flock is critical to all future plans.

The amount of wool handled dropped 21pc from 44m kg to 36m kg following foot-and-mouth in 2001, but no changes were made to adjust operations at that time because of the impending CAP mid-term review.

The final figure for the 2003 clip will be 36.97m kg.

"Because of the terms of the review and the varying criteria for payment, there will, inevitably, be changes in sheep numbers and there has been much conjecture," said Mr Langrish.

"Some Government statisticians have suggested a 20pc decrease in flock sizes in certain areas; one or two producers have suggested that, without stocking limits and the present reasonable prices, numbers may even increase.

"We need to know where these changes will occur to maintain the efficiency of our operation and keep costs down."

The board is talking to the farming unions and other farming organisations about the issues.

"Because of the excellent response and co-operation we received to our more formal producer questionnaire last year, it made sense to canvass major producers for their opinion," said Mr Langrish.

"We are looking for regional trends and have not asked for producers to supply names on their reply forms. I am very hopeful that we will have a useful response which will greatly assist our decision making."